Le salaire de la haine

Ken Dakota seeks revenge for the killing of his brother Bill and wife. In his search for the murderers he runs into conflict with the evil Mexican land owner Chris Malone (Horst Frank) who lets peasants fight against each other for pure pleasure. The plot isn't straight and simple and more often than not it is difficult to find any serious reason for what is going on. E.g. why putting Eastman over a snake pit. If he dies everything is lost and he won't talk anyways. Well, there is the reason of maintaining a constant flow of carcasses. Despite the rather violent and dark plot with various scenes of torture the film is beautifully shot in a nice landscape with lakes and waterfalls in front of a blue sky. Often the violence is accompanied by nice music and even the villains prove to be skilled musicians. This generates a strange contrast. George Eastman acts with pleasure and Horst Frank plays a credible villain. Nicoletta Machiavelli has definitely some problems with her role.

The film is pretty long for a Spaghetti Western and able to entertain as long as the viewer doesn't care about the plot. It seems to be filmed in 4:3 format.

There are some positive things I can say about the spaghetti western "Hate Thy Neighbor". The colorful outdoor location shooting makes the movie look different than the average spaghetti western. The musical score, while not a classic of the genre, is tuneful enough. Eastman and Frank make a couple of charismatic villains. And the action sequences, from the hand-to-hand combat sequences to the shootouts are pretty energetic.

Unfortunately, despite all those positive things, the movie is almost ruined by two factors. One is the hero, played by Spiros Focas. He is not very charismatic, especially when placed before the movie's villains. He is also written to be a pretty boring hero, someone who needs assistance from a sidekick among other things. But a bigger problem is the movie's pacing. Between the (few) action sequences, the movie moves at a sluggish pace, and the story feels very boring.

So if you're not a spaghetti western fan, forget it. Even if you are a spaghetti western fan, don't seek it out. But if you are a spaghetti western fan AND you happen to come across it AND if you are pressed to watch something you haven't seen before... only then should you watch it.

After "Preparati la bara!", director Baldi made another movie with the same team of villains: Horst Frank as the boss and George Eastman as his right hand man. "Odia il prossimo tuo" is just a minor work, but overall enjoyable. Ken (Spiros Focas) wants to kill his brother's murderer Gary Stevens (Eastman), but Stevens seems to be protected by the powerful Malone (Frank). But when Stevens and Malone become enemies, Ken tries to get his revenge.

The three most memorable scenes of the movie are: 1) at the beginning of the movie, when Ken's brother is desperately knocking on every door trying to find help while Stevens is hunting him. 2) The duel with metal claws instead of knives, quite unique. 3) Malone tortures Stevens, hanging upside down above a snake pit. Yes, it's a violent movie. It suffers a bit from Focas not being one of the familiar (anti-)heroes of the genre, but with Eastman, Frank and beautiful Nicoletta Macchiavelli, some good actors save the flick.

In the long line of spaguetti westerns, this has a double right to belong to the genre: it is a product 'made in Italy', and it has enough ketchup blood on the 'pasta'. Besides a few shootings, the highlights that may make this rather unique is the 'classic' addition of iron-claws used in two duels to the death: one between two Mexican slaves for their masters pleasure; and one between two 'gringo' bandits for possession of a tract of land, and a woman. Either the filming, or the video copying, are so bad as to diminish greatly the original intended gore effect.

Sure, the lead hero guy here is a bit bland and not given much to do, but thankfully the two bad guys here - George Eastman and Horst Frank, save the film! Maybe director Ferdinando Baldi knew this, as he seems to focus more on Eastman than anyone else. That, and there's a them tune seemingly sung by a pre-op transvestite whose hormone supplements have gone wrong.

26 foot tall Eastman plays Gary Stevens, and when we first meet him, he's riding into town following a guy called Dakota, who owns half a map that leads to a gold mine. After no one in town will help Dakota, and grinning Stevens guns him and his wife down (he doesn't spot their son, however). A local undertaker saves the son and takes him to Dakota's brother, who is also called Dakota.

This, more alive Dakota, starts things off by giving local sheriff Franco Fantasia a good kicking for not helping his brother, but it's really Stevens he's after. Things get a bit complicated as Stevens actually works for evil Horst Frank, and Frank wants that map, but also doesn't want to give Stevens his share - cue double crossings! The good thing about Frank is that he likes to force people to fight each other using huge metal claws. Why I don't know, but it looks cool and it's not something you see often in these films. That's another thing this film has going for it - claw fighting. And explosions.

While it's mostly a kind of run of the mill Spaghetti Western director Baldi throws in enough weirdness to grab your attention (claw fighting!) so it kind of stands out that way. Plus, Baldi also made Warbus so he ain't no fool. Eastman is good as the goofy, laughing Stevens and Horst Frank has a stare that could pierce metal. Needed a better leading man, though.