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Riding through the desert for days on end, a fugitive (Sid Haig)
finally reaches a small desert town, where he only plans to get water for
himself and his horse - when he's shot at by the Spaniard (Joseph
Hanwright). Even though the fugitive means the Spaniard no harm and tries
to reason with him, the Spaniard just keeps shooting. Finally, a woman
(Sharon Bercutt) shows up and tells the fugitive that the whole village is
terrorized by the Spaniard, who is some kind of god who keeps the rain
away, and the only way for the fugitive to get what he wants is to kill
his opponent - and ultimately, the fugitive, still on the run, is
convinced and somehow gets close enough to the Spaniard to beat him to
death. Then the villagers seem to come crawling out of their holes, and
they take the Spaniard apart - literally. When the fugitive stumbles upon
the Spaniards mutilated remains, he wants to leave on the spot, only to
discover that his pony has already been chased away, and he is doomed to
stay, as the village's new god ... Quite accomplished
short (circa 30 minutes) that presents an interesting blend of B Western
mainstays stripped to the bone, arthouse cinema influences à la Ingmar
Bergman and absurdity and minimalism reminiscent of Samuel Beckett - all
brought to the screen in a rather entertaining way. Quite a fascinating
concept, and too bad that in his later career, director Jack Hill, whose
debut this was, never again would make rather experimental and serious
films like this one. By the way, also the debut of later exploitation
icon sid Haig.
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