directed by:
Michael Su written by: Rolfe Kanefsky, Michael Mahal, Sonny Mahal, Adrian Milnes genre: Horror, Drama |
The Tommyknockers live in the mines, and to say they are very protective of their gold would be an understatement—a grave one. So when a bunch of gold-seeking miners digs a little too far, they unleash a terrible wrath on the town of Deer Creek. The wrath of the Tommyknockers. Set in the wild west, "Night of the Tommyknockers" has all the fixings of the classic spaghetti western - and then some. In the film, The Dirt gang is a bunch of dusty gun-slinging bank-robbing outlaws who show no mercy to anyone who happens to be in their way. While in the process of robbing and then killing a bank manager, they take a female hostage. Or is she? Several different bounty hunters then appear, seeking justice. One of them is the classic Clint Eastwood-style buckeroo who works for Wells Fargo, claiming bounties for robbing their money. The other is the brother of the murdered banker—Hell-bent on avenging his brother's death. Do I have your attention yet?
Meanwhile, the Dirt gang arrives in Deer Creek, which has essentially become a ghost town. Most of the townsfolk are gone except for some who are holed up in the local saloon, just waiting to die. The Tommyknockers like to come out at night, and let me tell y'all, it's going to be a long bloody night for these folks. Of course, above the saloon is the local bordello, where a few beautiful ladies are still open for business regardless of the pending apocalypse. Who're the bad guys and who are the good guys get a little confusing when everybody's just trying not to get eaten alive. Is there a lot of blood and gore? Hell, yes, there definitely is! If you think these Tommyknockers are not going to try and claim their revenge for stealing their gold, you are sorely mistaken - deathly mistaken. "Night of the Tommyknockers" starts out with some great performances by all of the Dirt gang, but once they arrive in Deer Creek, some of the supporting characters make the film lose some of its steam. What ends up being a good film - could have been a great film had some cuts both in front of and behind the camera been made. Never anything too bad, but noticeably awkward at times for sure. I also couldn't help but notice that the town claims to have run out of ammunition, but everyone seems to have massive amounts of bullets anyway. Again, nothing majorly wrong - but something I kept thinking about.
I also couldn't help but think about the great locations for the shooting of this film. It really helped sell the film, as did the top-notch camera work and editing. I should also note that the story itself is pretty well written - nothing earth-shatteringly unique, but still fresh enough to work well. Had some of the weaker scenes, performance-wise, been left out, I have no doubt that "Night of the Tommyknockers" would have been a much, much stronger film. I was very surprised to see Tom Sizemore as one of the Marshals, though - awesome! Well done; I give this film a solid and respectable three out of five stars. If you're looking for your western spaghetti fix with a side of ... Tommyknocker goodness, this film is definitely worth checking out. |
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