The Curse of El Charro

El Charro opens up in a fairly interesting way, leading me to believe it was some sort of religious supernatural thriller. However these themes are pushed aside, and not really developed. Later the group of friends run into a creepy Sheriff, who escorts them to bar, filled with assorted weirdos, including a wheel chair bound death metal rocker, suffering from some kind of mental handicap. At this point I'm thinking the film is going to become a Devil's Rejects, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre insane family type of film. No again, they simply leave the bar, and the Sheriff, and his wacky pals are never developed beyond that. Seriously, the writer or somebody has really messed up here, the film is a jumbled mess, and I can't begin to imagine where they went wrong. The film doesn't know what it wants to be, one minute it's going for the intense dramatic angle with a girl coping with the suicide of her sister, the next it features snore inducing stereotypes trying to party, and get laid. Finally by the end, it decides to go the slasher route, but it's far to late. I rate this a two, because I know some of the actors' are better then the material, and there are a couple decent kill scenes in the end, though nothing special. For those of you wondering, there is a brief lesbian shower scene with Tabitha Stevens, but it lasts all of three seconds, and you don't see much of anything. On a side note, Lemmy what were you thinking? You have to stick with Troma man, you were great in Tromeo And Juliet, but this garbage is beneath you.

Quentin Tarentino and Robert Rodriguez tried (I'd say, with mixed success) to honor the history of grindhouse movies -- low budget movies shot with gonzo velocities and lots of cleavers & cleavage.

What Tarentino and Rodriguez tried to celebrate from their mink-lined, gold-plated director chairs, these guys did all by their loathsome lonesome, and cranked out El Charro. A masterpiece? No - not by a long shot. But, you know, it does have all the hallmarks of grindhouse: barely comprehensible plotting, bizarre riffs from the periphery, cars on desert highways, bad dialog, bad cops, bad bars, some nonsense about curses, babbling priests, buckets of blood, a couple hundred f-bombs, and (duh) topless women.

If you're looking for El Charro to introduce you to next round of cinematic genius, you'll be sorely disappointed. But, if you've been hankering for some drive-in quality, B-movie slasher junk -- then why the hell not?

(The soundtrack kind of kicks a--, by the way).

I have watched some of the worsts wastes of film in my time but this is by far the very worst. Too bad the director and producer weren't among the victims so that we could have been spared this travesty to film making. The movie made absolutely no sense. The sound director didn't appear to know what they were doing. This movie was definitely done on the cheap since the lighting and the sound both were sub-standard, considering that the actors and actresses were all unknowns there should have been more than ample money to hire people to properly do the sound and lighting. The next time that the investors decide to invest in a movie I hope they remember how pitiful this one was and decide against it.

When I saw El Charro, the first thought that popped on my mind was that this movie should be named "The Curse of What Could Have Been". That is, if the scenario actually made sense. The movie begins with Maria, a rather annoying girl mourning the suicide of her sister (and by the way, we never do find out what made Lucia kill herself), going on a small vacation with four "friends". Incidentally, the friends are four archetypes, such as the good old American Beauty (the only one who cares about Maria, apparently), a hip hop star wannabe and a goth pinup would be. Curiously enough, the last two get along fairly well and seem to enjoy the same kind of music. How that is possible, one can only wonder. How do you we get to the juicy parts? After a lot of patience. The script is unbelievably slow and 3/4 of the movie seem to serve as filler. This was especially noticeable in the bar scene. The girls, after having a brush with the law (avoided because the driver takes the mutter into her own mouth, er, hands), decide to stop in a bar and drink before continuing their ride. Sounds only natural, correct? That is exactly what we would do if we were on a trip between states, escorted by police in a bar. The bar, operated by a fundamentalist American with bad taste in music, seems to be patronized by a weird mix of hillbillies and psychos. When the girls want to leave (understandably so), the police officer makes them sit down because they will "miss the show". The movie then proceeds to show us a goth guy in a suit screeching in an old microphone lyrics that apparently should tune us in the movie, because they are relevant to the heroine's situation. ...Ok guys, you've stumped me. The patrons, BY DEFINITION, should rise as one and get that idiot of the stage, for one. He is completely irrelevant to the movie. He is filler. The whole scene is filler, as every clue that is revealed is just not important enough to justify this travesty. Even though it is true that the actresses don't act in this to save their lives, the truth is that they are given almost no space to even try. The characters are flat and two-dimensional, trapped in their own delusional worlds. No growing for the heroine during the length of the movie. She doesn't, say, come to terms with her sister's suicide. She doesn't even save herself. An angel with fake wings and a tattoo does it for her. This is a shame, because this movie does have a couple of nice scenes (when the crew doesn't go wild with the camera, that is). An old time movie sequence in the middle of the movie gives the story away in a much more interesting way that the heroine would ever be able to. The music at the approaching of El Charro is rather good. El Charro himself, although dumber than Jason the Hockey Mask Boy, has a couple of nice scenes and a certain presence. It's not his fault he's not given enough space to actually DO something beyond slash like there's no tomorrow. and why slash, anyway? Why not just a gun? What is the justification behind this? There is none. The script in this is just terrible, plain and simple. The actors are uninspired. When closing in, El Charro looks like a black metal fan with bad, bad corpse painting on (Immortal would kick his ass). The pace is slow, the sex scenes not really that interesting (and that WAS a shame), and the deaths find the viewers completely supporting of the ghost. I would have done it too, El Charro. It's OK.

In California, Maria (Andrew Mia) has awful nightmares with and visions of her sister that committed suicide one year ago. Her roommate Chris (Heidi Androl) invites Maria to travel with her and her friends Tanya (Kathryn Taylor) and Rose (KellyDawn Malloy) on vacation to her uncle's house in Saguaro, Arizona, to relax. When the group arrives in the house, they immediately go to a night-club to have fun and chase some local guys for sex; however, the evil El Charro (Andrew Bryniarski) is seeking Maria killing her friends with his machete.

The slasher "The Curse of El Charro" is a gore mess. The characters in general are unpleasant and I do not understand how the four girls could take a road trip together: Maria is a deranged woman; Tanya is an amoral slut; Rose is a lesbian drug dealer; only Chris seems to be an average person. The screenplay is awful, and in the beginning, Maria is confessing her nightmares to a priest that seems to know something about her fate. Then, a group of young women from California that seems to be in a permanent heat goes to a desert place in the middle of nowhere to drink booze, use drugs and have sex with hillbilly strangers, in a totally weird and unusual situation. The creepy El Charro kills every character with his machete without any further explanation. The conclusion seems to indicate that the insane Maria actually killed her friends, but it not clear. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição de el Charro" ("The Curse of El Charro")