Executioner

The travails and exploits of a Sicilian hit-man, one could accurately refer to The Executioner as a classic example of deservedly obscure and very sleazy 70s exploitation. It's poorly written and it's badly acted. Thus, what this film really needed was more action and fewer lines. The story takes into account the rise of XXX pornography, as the main character in The Executioner considers entering into the porn industry as its taking off with the success of Deep Throat, which kind of connects the film's violent content to sex, both prime exploitation ingredients. As a 70s exploitation film, The Executioner has too much of the downside and not enough of the upside that that term carries with it. Still, for fans of borderline bad movies, it may not be a total disappointment.

Just saw this movie and I gotta say it was a pretty fun hour and a half of goomba gore and senseless mafia shananagins. And although it's a little incoherent at times, overall it's not a bad B movie. It's a Grindhouse feature and it's straight out of the "exploitation" genre so its got all the guilty pleasures that you would expect (eg: naked women, Afros, bloody violence and lots of political incorrectness). If you're looking for an Oscar winning mafia film like the "Godfather", "Casino" or "Goodfellas" then "Fah git about it" but if you enjoy movies that inspired writers and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to make their own films then you'll dig this one. After all who doesn't enjoy a senselessly violent B movie with questionable acting and naked broads once in a while...I know I do.

This mega cheapo budget film has all of the plot devices of The Godfather and none of the acting, directing, writing, cinematography, special effects, choreography, camera work, or general feeling. I haven't seen the Plan 9 From Outer Space but this easily has to compete with it for worst acting. Every word, every line sounds as forced out as every line in Pink Flamingos. Getting the actors to time their movements even was disaster. This movie also has the distinguishment of being one of the most racially challenged movies ever. The only black man in the film is called Super Spook!!!!! Super Spook is actually crusified!! The Italian American community is portrayed as dumb mob hoods who revel in Spaghetti! The movies mob bosses are weaklings who forgive having relatives killed and body parts cut off. The only worth in watching this is knowing you could easily do a better job. How bad is the writing? When a mob boss is kidnapped his finger his cut off and mailed home with a ransom note, a friend upon reading the note and seeing the thumb utters the stupid line "That's Chucky's thumb all right, I've seen it on him a million times" A THUMB!!!!! Give this movie a three out of ten, for hilarious stupidity and a wacked out soundtrack!

A Sicilian mob hit-man winds up in Hollywood, shooting pimps, hookers, rivals, and lackeys in one of the most deliriously gonzo grindhouse epics of the 1970s. Much time is spent on dinner conversation, wherein gut-busting hilarious dialog is delivered with impeccably mislaid motivation(one memorably clamorous censure involving an old lady's hands is a howler of awkwardly earnest sentiment). Add to that a heaping helping of very nasty gun violence, and you've got yourself one flaming spitball of a movie-- it's point-blank brutal, occasionally somewhat poignant, and a treasure trove of unintentional laughs.

Produced with empty pockets and a whole lot of misguided enthusiasm, this is gimcrack amateur filmmaking wholly uncorrupted by Hollywood's questionable influence. No frills cheap thrills...a bonne-bouche for fans of nethermost cinema, capice?

7/10

"You see these hands? Know what they smell of? Oregano! Pasinigol! Beautiful herbs! They gave you mostaccioli, lasagna, pizza--some of the most appreciated foods in the world! But what did we give her, Chucky, eh? We gave her violence. We gave her death. We gave her dishonor!" So says the hero, actor/writer/director/producer Duke Mitchell of his sainted paisan grandma in MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE, the greatest of all forgotten American grindhouse movies of the nineties. It's almost impossible to evoke the impassioned lunacy of this movie, which suggests a low-low-budget version of GOODFELLAS directed by Sam Fuller after sharing a speedball with Richard Pryor. Let's just say that the movie opens with a paraplegic being electrocuted using a desk lamp and an office urinal; soars ahead to a scene where a black pimp is crucified while the L.A. Philharmonic plays Handel's Messiah at the Hollywood Bowl; and climaxes with the remorseful hero saying, "The Italian wasn't disgraced, Chucky--we disgraced it!" Somewhere, Jade Stallone, son of the great man and proprietor of Grindhouse Releasing, has Duke Mitchell's final masterwork, GONE WITH THE POPE, discovered in Duke's bedroom closet after his demise. Bring on THE POPE! And, God be prasied, some day bring MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE--a bootleg favorite--to the public's eye. Even Master Sam himself never went quite so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.