Hot Picks

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- Script of the Dead 2024

- The Bell Affair 2023

- Easter Bloody Easter 2024

- Velma 2022

- Everwinter Night 2023

- Main Character Energy 2023

- Stupid Games 2024

- Bittertooth 2023

- 4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher 2024

- Apart 2024

- The Abandoned 2006

- Becky 2024

- The Evil Fairy Queen 2024

- The Black Guelph 2022

- Followers 2024

- Silence of the Prey 2024

- Battle for the Western Front 2024

- Beware the Boogeyman 2024

- Subject 101 2022

- Driftwood 2023

- The Legend of Lake Hollow 2024

- Black Mass 2023

- Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 2023

- The Manifestation 2024

- Spirit Riser 2024

- Garden of Souls 2019

- It's a Wonderful Slice 2024

- Caleb & Sarah 2024

- The Thousand Steps 2020

- The Desiring 2021

- When a Stranger Knocks 2024

- Quint-essentially Irish 2024

- Son of Gacy 2024

- Saltville 2024

- The True Story of the Christ's Return 2024

- Whenever I'm Alone with You 2023

- Jurassic Triangle 2024

- Midnight Peepshow 2022

- Offworld: Alien Planet 2024

- The Swiss Conspiracy 1976

- Sex-Positive 2024

- Here for Blood 2022

- All Over Again 2024

- The Color Yellow 2023

- Des Töchterleins Leid 2024

- I Am a Channel 2024

- The Hermits 2023

- Murdaritaville 2024

- Inheritance 2024

- The Devil's Partner 1960

- Pareidolia 2023

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

The Shooting
The Epitaph

USA 1966
produced by
Jack Nicholson, Monte Hellman, Roger Corman (executive) for Proteus Films, Santa Clara Productions
directed by Monte Hellman
starring Warren Oates, Will Hutchins, Millie Perkins, Jack Nicholson, Charles Eastman, Guy El Tsosie, Brandon Carroll, B.J. Merholz, Wally Moon, William Mackleprang, James Campbell
written by Adrien Joyce (= Carole Eastman), music by Richard Markowitz

review by
Mike Haberfelner





When prospector Willett (Warren Oates) returns to the mine in the middle of nowhere he and his friends run, he finds one dead and buried, one, Coley (Will Hutchins), frightened out of his mind, and one, Leland (B.J. Merholz), has apparently gone on the run after having run over and probably killed a child by accident, and he's now fearing somebody will come after him.

Willett and Coley are soon joined by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) who never gives them her name but wants Willett, a former bounty hunter, to track someone. Willett doesn't trust the woman one bit - Coley falls head over heels in love with her - but as she offers a large sum of money, he can't really refuse. So the three of them go on a hunt, and it soon becomes obvious the woman's the boss, whether the men like it or not, and she seems in a hurry. Also she often acts weird, like firing her gun every few hours or so - and it eventually becomes apparent why, she hasn't come on her own but has brought a hired gun, Billy (Jack Nicholson), with her whom she has apparently hired to kill whoever they're tracking. Eventually Billy catches up with them, and he doesn't seem to be too nice a man.

Coley's horse breaks down in the middle of the desert, and for a while he's doubling up with Willett, but as that's hampering Willett's track-reading efforts, the woman and Billy soon decide to just leave him behind. Willett doesn't like this much, but as he figures whatever lies ahead of them might be even more dangerous than walking the desert on one's own, he agrees to ditch Billy, of course promising to pick him up again on the way back.

The further the trail goes, the more on edge everybody gets, and hostilities soon come to the fore. In the meantime, Coley has found a horse against all odds, and he decides to catch up with Willett and the others, but Billy isn't happy about that one bit, so he provokes Coley to pull his gun on him, upon which he, a quick draw if you ever saw one, shoots him dead "in self defense" - and this is where Willett really loses it ...

 

Legend has it that Roger Corman financed this film, along with Ride in the Whirlwind, as a favour for his frequent collaborators Jack Nicholson and Monte Hellman, but after a Cannes premiere, both films failed to make much waves, and actually failed to find a US distributor. It wasn't until decades later that the films were rediscovered and given their proper place in cinema history.

 

Taken by its own merits, The Shooting is quite probably the most anti-utopian western of them all, here everything's dirty, there are no heroes, a moral compass counts little, and only selfishness will get you anywhere. The whole thing is bleak, fatalistic, nihilistic ... and quite simply wonderful. It's really a rare gem in the western genre, one that does away with all the glamour of classic western cinema as well as the more operatic approach of the then emerging spaghetti western and paints a grim picture, which Monte Hellman's very restrained directorial effort only adding to the atmosphere of constant gloom. And quite apart from that, casting Millie Perkins as the unlikely villainess of the piece is really a stroke of genius, and she totally lives up to the task.

A masterpiece for sure!

 

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find The Shooting
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find The Shooting here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai

Something naughty?
(Must be over 18 to go there!)

x-rated  find The Shooting at adultvideouniverse.com


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!