Lucio Fulci made some Westerns in his prolific career (like the 1966 Tempo di Massacro aka Colt Concert and 1978 Sella d'argento aka Silver Saddle) but this film, I Quattro dell'apocalisse aka The Four of the Apocalypse (1975, and among the very last of the Spaghetti Westerns alongside Enzo G. Castellari's Keoma, 1976 and Sergio Martino's Mannaja from 1977) is perhaps his most noteworthy Western as it at least has some marks of the director's talent as well as a very great premise and potential which are sadly used very minimally.
Fabio Testi, a great actor, stars as a clever card shark who arrives in one town somewhere in the West. Soon he gets to trouble and finds himself travelling with three other lost souls, a kind hearted "whore" (Lynne Frederick), a mentally unbalanced black man (Harry Baird) and an alcoholic loser (Michael J. Pollard) who all soon meet the film's and perhaps the whole Western genre's most heinous and mean spirited villain, Chaco, played by the always great Tomas Milian (Django Kill, Compañeros, Run Man Run among many others). A tale of violence, revenge and some surreal goings-on has begun in the hands of the director who has done much better.
First the negative things as Fulci has a certain place in my heart as he was the very first to introduce me to the wonderful and atmospheric, and sometimes very gory, Italian horror genre as well as being responsible for two of the greatest Italian Giallo mysteries ever, Non si sevizia un paperino aka Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) and Sette note in nero aka The Psychic (1977). The Four of the Apocalypse begins very promisingly as it is not too long before we see something's going to change inside the first seemingly "good" character of Testi's. He starts to hunger for revenge as he sees something horrible done by the sadistic bandit Chaco. But this anti-violent, human being depicted as it deep inside is theme of wickedness and dualism of our nature is not there as it should be, it is only a tale of revenge without the kind of harrowing, realistic and universal power as in, for example, Sergio Corbucci's 1968 masterpiece Il grande silenzio aka The Great Silence in which the theme of revenge and animal living inside man is taken as far as possible, making perhaps one of the saddest, most honest and violent endings in the whole cinematic history. Klaus Kinski's character in that film is even more convincing than the sadistic Chaco in Fulci's film.
At the end of Fulci's film, it is unpleasantly obvious that this is just another violent Spaghetti Western without the ambition that would have done it among the masterpieces. The lonely animal in the desert in which Testi rides at the end only tries to make his character more likable and his acts "acceptable" while it all just makes bad for the piece. When the baby is born for Testi and his wife, we see long takes of Testi watching the small human being with amazement and something definitely going on inside him, but still he, and the film makers, don't understand how great scene that would have been to make Testi's character forget about his hunger and see what he has achieved, something that he should protect with his whole heart. But no, the potentially great sequence (very long one, too) promises much but after all manages to give nothing for the film as a whole.
Another problem is the last third of the film, when they arrive in the wonderfully white place, again reminding me of the mentioned Corbucci masterpiece. That long sequence, involving one tragic death and one life affirming birth, is very slowly paced and feels very bad in contrast to the rather well told first part that preceded it. There is too much discussion that doesn't give anything important to the film and so they only feel boring. But that same sequence has some great acting, mostly by the "whore" who became Testi's wife as she really cried in that scene, and that, according to Testi, moved the whole crew a lot as they saw how emotional the girl got for the scene, and despite the actress Frederick at times moves her eyes a little too much and exaggeratedly, she shows her abilities in that moving scene.
The third major negative thing is the way how the black character (Baird) is treated here. He gets to hear everywhere nasty and mean comments about his skin color and race, and as if that wasn't enough, he is not a balanced man trying to fight against the oppression of the racist others but a very neutral and almost just plain silly character that don't even seem to understand how mean and narrow-minded some of the others are against him. He, however, finds something larger than life in the rather impressive and almost surreal ghost town sequence which also suggest the rather pessimistic but so realistic fact how sometimes it is not so remarkably better to be alive than dead. And that in this world, surrounded by all kinds of human beings, sometimes even the dead feel safer and more human than the alive. But Alexandro Jodorowsky, for example, would have done it all so much more powerfully and with greater impact, as he does in his masterpiece La montagna sacre aka The Holy Mountain (1973) so fantastically. If there had been at least one "normal" and safe black character, it would have been a lot better.
Some of the positive things to be found are at least in the visual look of the film as it has some interesting images and landscapes captured on film. The film is photographed by the future Fulci regular Sergio Salvati who is alongside Fulci and composer Fabio Frizzi responsible for the greatness and atmosphere of Fulci's horror films of the early eighties. The rain and the ghost town sequences are pretty good here, as well as the ones that show rocky mountains and deserted places in the world the Four are wandering. The scene in which a character dies is also, alongside the potential birth sequence and the ghost town sequence, very memorable and supports the theme and message of the ghost town in same way. Somewhere must be a better place as all the dead or soon-to-become-ones in the film seem to know.
The actors are also good as can be expected from the cast and naturally Testi and Milian stand out. Milian's character does some horrific acts in the film and the torture scene is very haunting and would have also been ever more so if Fulci had only shown the great face Testi has in that scene. Now it loses its power as he goes to details but still the impact of the devilish scene and Milian is quite strong and shows also what kind of carnal imagery Fulci would be capable to shoot. Still, the film would have been much greater as well as more surreal, if Milian's character had vanished totally after he is first introduced as, as mentioned before, now the ending involving the same devil doesn't work at all. If Jodorowsky had done this film, Milian's character had vanished and Testi's character had learnt. And the piece would have been much more magical.
The Four of the Apocalypse is not as great as it should have been. The mentioned Il grande silenzio is a perfect example of the abilities of this powerful genre and films like this Fulci effort are examples of how it can be misused making more or less shallow and violent films. It has some merits but mostly only potential. The maestro has done much better, may his soul now rest in peace and shall his (below) mediocre films teach something with their flaws. 3/10
Fabio Testi, a great actor, stars as a clever card shark who arrives in one town somewhere in the West. Soon he gets to trouble and finds himself travelling with three other lost souls, a kind hearted "whore" (Lynne Frederick), a mentally unbalanced black man (Harry Baird) and an alcoholic loser (Michael J. Pollard) who all soon meet the film's and perhaps the whole Western genre's most heinous and mean spirited villain, Chaco, played by the always great Tomas Milian (Django Kill, Compañeros, Run Man Run among many others). A tale of violence, revenge and some surreal goings-on has begun in the hands of the director who has done much better.
First the negative things as Fulci has a certain place in my heart as he was the very first to introduce me to the wonderful and atmospheric, and sometimes very gory, Italian horror genre as well as being responsible for two of the greatest Italian Giallo mysteries ever, Non si sevizia un paperino aka Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) and Sette note in nero aka The Psychic (1977). The Four of the Apocalypse begins very promisingly as it is not too long before we see something's going to change inside the first seemingly "good" character of Testi's. He starts to hunger for revenge as he sees something horrible done by the sadistic bandit Chaco. But this anti-violent, human being depicted as it deep inside is theme of wickedness and dualism of our nature is not there as it should be, it is only a tale of revenge without the kind of harrowing, realistic and universal power as in, for example, Sergio Corbucci's 1968 masterpiece Il grande silenzio aka The Great Silence in which the theme of revenge and animal living inside man is taken as far as possible, making perhaps one of the saddest, most honest and violent endings in the whole cinematic history. Klaus Kinski's character in that film is even more convincing than the sadistic Chaco in Fulci's film.
At the end of Fulci's film, it is unpleasantly obvious that this is just another violent Spaghetti Western without the ambition that would have done it among the masterpieces. The lonely animal in the desert in which Testi rides at the end only tries to make his character more likable and his acts "acceptable" while it all just makes bad for the piece. When the baby is born for Testi and his wife, we see long takes of Testi watching the small human being with amazement and something definitely going on inside him, but still he, and the film makers, don't understand how great scene that would have been to make Testi's character forget about his hunger and see what he has achieved, something that he should protect with his whole heart. But no, the potentially great sequence (very long one, too) promises much but after all manages to give nothing for the film as a whole.
Another problem is the last third of the film, when they arrive in the wonderfully white place, again reminding me of the mentioned Corbucci masterpiece. That long sequence, involving one tragic death and one life affirming birth, is very slowly paced and feels very bad in contrast to the rather well told first part that preceded it. There is too much discussion that doesn't give anything important to the film and so they only feel boring. But that same sequence has some great acting, mostly by the "whore" who became Testi's wife as she really cried in that scene, and that, according to Testi, moved the whole crew a lot as they saw how emotional the girl got for the scene, and despite the actress Frederick at times moves her eyes a little too much and exaggeratedly, she shows her abilities in that moving scene.
The third major negative thing is the way how the black character (Baird) is treated here. He gets to hear everywhere nasty and mean comments about his skin color and race, and as if that wasn't enough, he is not a balanced man trying to fight against the oppression of the racist others but a very neutral and almost just plain silly character that don't even seem to understand how mean and narrow-minded some of the others are against him. He, however, finds something larger than life in the rather impressive and almost surreal ghost town sequence which also suggest the rather pessimistic but so realistic fact how sometimes it is not so remarkably better to be alive than dead. And that in this world, surrounded by all kinds of human beings, sometimes even the dead feel safer and more human than the alive. But Alexandro Jodorowsky, for example, would have done it all so much more powerfully and with greater impact, as he does in his masterpiece La montagna sacre aka The Holy Mountain (1973) so fantastically. If there had been at least one "normal" and safe black character, it would have been a lot better.
Some of the positive things to be found are at least in the visual look of the film as it has some interesting images and landscapes captured on film. The film is photographed by the future Fulci regular Sergio Salvati who is alongside Fulci and composer Fabio Frizzi responsible for the greatness and atmosphere of Fulci's horror films of the early eighties. The rain and the ghost town sequences are pretty good here, as well as the ones that show rocky mountains and deserted places in the world the Four are wandering. The scene in which a character dies is also, alongside the potential birth sequence and the ghost town sequence, very memorable and supports the theme and message of the ghost town in same way. Somewhere must be a better place as all the dead or soon-to-become-ones in the film seem to know.
The actors are also good as can be expected from the cast and naturally Testi and Milian stand out. Milian's character does some horrific acts in the film and the torture scene is very haunting and would have also been ever more so if Fulci had only shown the great face Testi has in that scene. Now it loses its power as he goes to details but still the impact of the devilish scene and Milian is quite strong and shows also what kind of carnal imagery Fulci would be capable to shoot. Still, the film would have been much greater as well as more surreal, if Milian's character had vanished totally after he is first introduced as, as mentioned before, now the ending involving the same devil doesn't work at all. If Jodorowsky had done this film, Milian's character had vanished and Testi's character had learnt. And the piece would have been much more magical.
The Four of the Apocalypse is not as great as it should have been. The mentioned Il grande silenzio is a perfect example of the abilities of this powerful genre and films like this Fulci effort are examples of how it can be misused making more or less shallow and violent films. It has some merits but mostly only potential. The maestro has done much better, may his soul now rest in peace and shall his (below) mediocre films teach something with their flaws. 3/10