Django Kill...If You Live, Shoot!

I've seen some strange Westerns, but none compare to Django Kill (1967). Giulio Questi's Spaghetti epic is a grotesque carnival of killing, each scene a tableau of bad taste. It's repulsive yet strangely watchable.

The Stranger (Tomas Milan), aka Django, is a Mexican bandit who joins American crook Oaks (Piero Lulli) in a robbery. Oaks double-crosses his Mexican compatriot, killing his men and leaving Django for dead. Django's revived by a pair of Indians who take him to the nearest town, who've denied him vengeance by gruesomely lynching Oaks and his gang. Among the many factions vying for control is Zorro (Robert Camardiel), a sadist with a gang of black-clad "muchachos." Zorro tries to hire Django, then tortures him to ferret out his cache of gold. Assorted twists, betrayals and eviscerations follow.

From the first shot of Django emerging vampire-like from a grave, Django Kill signals it's not your ordinary Western. Questi ups the ante in cinematic sadism: gunfights turn into lynchings, characters are graphically scalped, an adolescent boy is tortured and gang raped. One villain gets torn apart by townspeople searching for gold bullets in his belly! Add Zorro's gay cowboys, two aphoristic Indians, an alcoholic parrot, a sluttish madam (Marilu Toto) who orgasms at the sight of gold and an attic-bound wife (Patrizia Valturri) out of Jane Eyre for a neat blend of tackiness and incoherence.

Questi adds insult to injury, or inspiration to insanity, by dousing Django in tacky symbolism. Like many Spaghettis, it drips with religious iconography. Django inevitably gets crucified in a jail cell, as bloodthirsty bats (!) gnaw on his flesh. Questi additionally subverts small town Western values, showing the townspeople as greedy backstabbers, united only in bloodshed and death. Django Kill so earnestly invests its carnage with "meaning" that it becomes sort of endearing.

Drink, you feathered sponge!

Beyond its guilty pleasure status, Django Kill has little to commend it. Plot-wise, credit Questi for trying something different from the usual betrayal and revenge plot. But the story bogs down in its absurdities, characters revealing motivations than instantly being bumped off. Questi's flashy style proves incoherent, all jerky flashbacks, surreal color schemes (especially the bleached-white desert) and slapdash editing. It's all scored by Ivan Vandor's incongruously bouncy music. The result is more hallucination than movie.

Tomas Milan's Django is uncharacteristically passive, showing little gun-fighting prowess and less resolution. It's not a patch on Milan's iconic turns as Cuchillio or Beauregard Bennett. Robert Camardiel gets the meatiest part, whether drooling over his henchmen or bantering with his bird. The other cast members make little impression.

Django Kill is immune to a review like this. Conventionally analyzed it's terrible, yet its sheer perversity fascinates. Fans of exploitation cinema will have a ball; others should steer clear.