Hot Spur is a grimy western roughie, but National Review apparently liked it

 

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Review by Doug Gibson

I'm not much for the 1960s "roughie" genre (today essentially violent R-rated films with nudity), but one film has always intrigued me. It's called "Hot Spur," a 1968 revenge western directed by Lee Frost and co-written by exploitation genre legend Bob Cresse. The reason? Legend has it that the  conservative opinion magazine National Review named it one of its Top 10 films of the year.

Is this true? Perhaps I'll need to search back archives of the magazine to confirm. But just the thought that the late William F. Buckley might have traversed 42nd Street to see this sleazy film, with its frequent nudity and violence, intrigued me. I had to view it and did, for free, on Plex.

It is indeed grimy. A Mexican teenager stablehand, Carlo, is sick and tired of seeing his sister raped. The films opens with a sexual assault on a barmaid, who might be his sister; it's kind of unclear. The teenager follows the rapists back to the ranch. He eventually kidnaps the rich rancher's wife, and rapes and tortures her. There is a very bloody, nihilistic finale. There is gratitious nudity. A typical long-scene example is a visit by the misogynistic assaultants to a bordello, where prostitutes disrobe and for several minutes are groped, squeezed and have beer poured on them by the clothed men, who behave like pigs.

So is this film a step above its low-tier genre?  Maybe a little. It's a pithy tale, direct and to the point; brevity works here. Perhaps National Review was impressed by the crude frontier justice and chaos that results. Also, Carlo, played by James Arena, is kind of interesting. At first the viewer has sympathy for him, due to the abuse he takes from the cowboys and rancher. But as the film goes on Carlo's actions turn evil and his character loses sympathy. That reminds me of George A. Romero's "Martin," where the title wannabe vampire, played by John Amplas, could evoke sympathy but simply goes too far until the audience wants him dead.

Apparently Joseph Mascolo, who plays the rancher Jason O'Hara, became a soap opera star later. Virginia Gordon plays his kidnapped wife, Susan O'Hara. My assumption is she was a star of the adult genre of that era.

Besides Plex and other streamers, this film is for sale by Severin Films as a Blu-Ray, with accompanying feature, shorts and interviews. I believe this weekend it's half price for Black Friday. The Blu-Ray is also at Amazon. If you like this revenge western genre, Plan9Crunch has also reviewed "Cain's Cutthroats." John Carradine is great in that grimy film.

Blood Shack, 1971 -- The Chooper will Get You!

 

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Review by Steve D. Stones

Severin Films has recently released an awesome Blu-Ray boxed set of 20 incredibly strange films by director Ray Dennis Steckler. Included in the set is his 1971 film – Blood Shack, and an alternative cut of the film - The Chooper. The boxed set also includes an informative booklet about Steckler, his films and career.

In Blood Shack, three young people in an antique car pull up to an abandoned house in the middle of the Nevada desert. A young woman in the group named Connie, played by Laurel Spring, has recently had an argument with her husband and has left him. She dares the two young men she's with to stay in the abandoned house overnight. The two men refuse to stay in the house, claiming a local legend says it's haunted and that the entire ranch surrounding the house is possessed by a sword slashing, ancient Indian spirit known as “The Chooper.” The two men leave Connie alone at the house.

A shirtless rancher named Daniel, played by Jason Wayne, warns Connie not to stay in the house overnight. Connie ignores his warning and goes into the house. She lays out her sleeping bag on a worn, soiled mattress in the middle of the front room of the house and strips down to her underwear. The camera shows close ups of large holes in the walls, torn wallpaper and a very dark interior. A dark dressed figure enters the room and chases Connie throughout the house. He stabs Connie several times with a sword, killing her.

Daniel arrives the next morning to see Connie's dead body in the house. “I told you the Chooper was gonna get you! I told you!” he screams out, as he places Connie's body in the back of his pick up truck to bury her corpse out in the desert. Apparently this is not the first time Daniel has found a corpse in the house that was killed by the dark figure.

Carol, played by Steckler's beautiful wife Carolyn Brandt, inherits the abandoned house and the ranch from her family. She arrives soon after Connie's death to inspect the property. She is immediately pressured by a local land investor named Tim Foster (played by Ron Haydock, the hero of Steckler's 1966 film - RatPfink A Boo Boo) to sell the entire ranch. Carol refuses to sell the ranch to Foster, but is pressured by Foster several times to sell. Foster becomes more and more aggressive to buy the land as the film progresses.

Also included on the Blood Shack disc in the Blu-Ray set is the alternative cut of the film – The Chooper. This cut of the film runs 14 minutes longer. The opening narration by Carolyn Brandt is also longer, and gives a greater description of how the ranch curse and The Chooper began. This print of the film is not as sharp as the Blood Shack print, so it likely has not been digitally remastered. The opening titles of The Chooper, however, are much more interesting by showing crudely painted bloody graphics and titles which omit director Steckler's screen pseudonym of Wolfgang Schmidt. Steckler's name does not appear in the opening credits of Blood Shack.

The Chooper also has a scene in which Carol speaks to Daniel in an office room with posters from many of Steckler's movies hanging on the walls. This scene is not shown in the Blood Shack print of the film. Other added scenes in this cut of the film show Tim Foster confronting Carol at a worn down gas station to ask her again to sell the ranch. More scenes of Steckler's children Linda and Laura are also in this cut of the film that are not shown in Blood Shack.

A pony named Peanuts stars in The Chooper in a brief scene and also gets a screen credit at the end of the film. Steckler inserts several scenes of a local rodeo in the film. These scenes are more frequent in The Chooper cut of the film. Steckler is careful not to reveal the face of The Chooper every time he appears in a scene to chase and stab his next victim. Blood Shack is also known for its third title - “Curse of The Evil Spirit.” In an opening commentary, movie critic Joe Bob Briggs says The Chooper is the original cut of the film. Happy Viewing.

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Editor's note: McFarland Press has just released a new book, The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler, by Christopher Curry. We have ordered it. You can here.