Gallow Walkers

I rarely rate a movie as low as I am doing Gallowwalkers. Any worse and it would have been funny bad. Unfortunately it manages to stop right before it gets there, but goes far enough for almost all movies to be better. I am not kidding. The story is a confused mess, the actors play bad, the action scenes make no sense.

You know when you have dreams when it is really hot and everything seems to move in slow motion and doesn't respect any narrative and it is all a blur that you fight to make sense of and can't? That's how bad this movie is.

And you might dismiss my comment and think that I have something against Snipes. No, I do not. I know he is not a good actor, but I've watched a lot of his movies. I respect him as an action star. He is like a black VanDamme. But this film... I am really astounded that it could have turned this bad. Speechless, almost.

It seemed like they weren't really sure what it was.

Some things that may make you LOL in this dire bore-fest:

I laughed so hard when that well bucket was just sat on ground level, and when he dropped it back in the well, it sounded like it fell on to some metal on the ground! Really, really atrocious filming in that scene. Were they all high or something when making this?

The 'bad' guy doing a 'muhahahahaaa' on the gallows scene was just hilarious.

And what was with that cave thing about, holy crap! Was the entire scene just removed?

The actors delivered the tired script straight and awkwardly like some kind of cheap SciFi channel TV movie. They all appeared somewhat self aware and miserable. Cringe making at times, Snipes does his best not to laugh in places it feels, although he's good at the Blade poses as usual.

And don't me started on the music, trying to be all Spaghetti Western from the 1960's, but cheesing it up really badly in places. But to be honest the music was the best thing about the film! Which says a lot.

It has decent gore effects, surprisingly, and I guess it was memorable for some reason, perhaps all the bad wigs and head pieces made it memorable. Not in a good way though.

I honestly felt sorry for the editor of this, but it got into such a mess anyway. I suspect too many hands (guys in suits) got involved in the final cut.

Sorry it's not a proper review like review, but it really wasn't worth caring for. Avoid. Unless, no, just avoid.

A zombie western shot in the Namibian desert sounds like a hoot, but GALLOWWALKERS is something of a mixed bag when it comes to filmed entertainment. It may be due to the troubled waters behind the scenes, which saw Snipes arrested for tax evasion and jailed for three years. Not good news when your star is sent to prison halfway through filming.

Still, it could have been a lot worse and GALLOWWALKERS does have stuff going for it. The story is pretty unique, featuring a cursed gunslinger (Snipes on strong, stylish form) whose victims always come back from the dead to be killed a second time around. The zombie stuff is handled fairly well, but the production values are weak with a distinctive B-movie look and feel to the whole thing.

A solid turn from Snipes helps to anchor things, and there's enough blood 'n' guts for the horror crowd to stay tuned in. But in the end this has to go down as a failure, purely because it's completely forgettable as a film with little rewatchability. A failure that tries hard, but still a failure nonetheless.

Interesting Weird West film (i.e. western horror mash-up) had potential, but instead becomes laughably bad. Wesley Snipes plays a cursed gunman who's victims come back as the undead. Snipes is solid as the strong silent gunslinger (basically Blade in a duster), and at times the film has strong visuals, with bright incongruous colors that echo Jodorowsky's "El Topo," so I'll give the filmmakers credit for trying to do something original, but overall this attempt at a genre mash-up comes off as unintentionally laughable. While this film wanted to be "Into the Badlands" it ended up being closer to the "Wild Wild West" movie remake. Overall, this film is only for hardcore Snipes fans. Patrick Bergin and professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page also appear in this disappointment. FUN FACT! "Gallowswalkers" was originally set to be filmed back in 2005 as "The Wretched" with Chow Yun-Fat in the lead!

Synopsis: In an arid wasteland created by too many lacklustre Hollywood mash-ups, critics think they've put the final stake in Wesley Snipe's career, but surprisingly it returns from the dead and feasts on spaghetti using Leone and Joderowsky's silver spoon.

Verdict: Ambitious, imaginative and visually impressive film that warrants obvious comparison (Leone), but seems more indebted to El Topo's art direction and non-linear, Gothic, psychedelic spaghetti westerns like Matalo! and Django Kill, if You Live, Shoot! Personally, I enjoy this sort of thing, but I can see why many do not; it is brazenly uncommercial and unconventional (a brave choice at this point in Snipe's career decline), and that's part of its appeal.

Several reviews have complained about the incoherent (or completely lacking) plot, but being a fan of spaghetti westerns, I've become accustomed to going along with the film's visuals - like following a good jazz number. I found the plot to be simplistic and classic western: man seeks revenge, flashbacks ensue, he gets revenge and - here's the twist - the people he kills come back from the grave ... so man seeks young apprentice to help him kill them once again.

To some degree, I agree with the negative reviews. I did find it a frustrating and uneven watch. I couldn't help but think that a much better film was possible. Several scenes are cut in a manner that implies not enough footage was shot (made all the more infuriating by the fact that most of the film is extremely well photographed, making excellent use of the Namibian locations). There's also some reliance on rather cheap looking CGI - although the removal of heads and spinal columns was quite impressive. The voice-over narration - always problematic - sounds like a bad advert for men's cologne. The narration is made even worse by two narrators, possibly a necessity stemming from Snipe's three-year prison sentence in 2010 for failure to file income tax returns (Gallowwalkers was shot just before Snipes went to prison).

The music, so important to any spaghetti western, is also disappointing, veering from more appropriate classical to some sort of alt-rock. Lastly, the climatic journey into the "spirit world" looks like it was shot in an underground parking lot. After that, an incongruous animated credit sequence rolls by, suggesting Gallowwalkers wants to position itself with the postmodern, ironic works of Rodriguez and Tarantino. Clearly, it should have remained true to its spaghetti western DNA.