Imagine what a standard-issue Spaghetti western shoot'em up about revenge with sadistic dastards pitted against a savvy lone wolf hero who happens to be a crack shot and then add 3-D, and you've got the best adrenalin-laced western 3-D bloodbath with director Ferdinando Baldi's "Comin'At Ya" with "Stranger in Town" star Tony Anthony. This is one 3-D movie that lives up to its title. Baldi literally sticks virtually everything in your face during this 91-minute sagebrush showdown. This is 3-D as it should have been done for the get-go. Unfortunately, Rhino Video got their fumbling fingers this masterpiece of atmospheric frontier violence and botched it as a DVD. Originally, I saw this movie in Jackson, Mississippi, when it came out in 1981, and it was terrific! The plot was as lean as Tony Anthony. Basically, Anthony plays a version of his "Stranger' again, but this time his wardrobe has changed. Gone is the serape. He wears a dress coat, vest, and looks like a conventional hero in an American western. Mind you, things have changed considerably with the release of "Comin' At Ya" in Blu-ray 3-D with "a frame by frame digital conversion of the polarized over-and-under format of the original print, sourced from a brand new inter-negative into the MVC 3-D format and a new 5.1 surround sound" audio. The quoted words are straight off the Blu-ray case. If you are an avid 3-D fan, I believe this movie was made for you, and it looks terrific, aside from some of the degradation that time has imposed on the original print. Meantime, the new 3-D glasses are nothing like the original ones. The glass look exactly like those in contemporary movie theaters. Kind of like sunglasses. The 3-D "Comin' At Ya" effects looked great on my 65 inch television. Several people have said that Anthony put together a demo-reel of western scenes and showed how they wound look in 3-D. If this is was the case, then Tony Anthony was a pretty shrewd dude. Too bad it couldn't have supervise all the other 3-D movies that came out in the 1980s. Most of them sucked terribly!
Lloyd Battista of "Treasure of the Four Crowns," Wolf Lowenthal of "Get Mean," Gene Quintaro of "Sudden Dead" wrote their screenplay from Tony Pettito's story. Tony Anthony wrote under the pseudonym of Tony Pettito. The narrative portion of this western is reminiscent in some ways of Ferdinando Baldni's "Blindman," except our hero retains his sight. Similarly, the villains, led by Pike (Gene Quintaro) and his obese brother Polk (hefty Richard Palacios of "Return of the Seven"), have amassed an army of six-gunners with an arrow-shooting Indian, and they raid towns on the American side of the border for lovely dames to sell for lots of loot in Mexico. The first mistake that these bastards make occurs when they interrupt a marriage in a church where H.H. Hart (Tony Anthony of "The Stranger" movies) is getting himself hitched to beautiful Abilene (Victoria Abril of "High Heels") and wound him and abduct her. Naturally, when Hart recovers from his wounds, he rides out to recover his bride. Meantime, Pike has rounded up two wagon loads of women and he has set up an auction to sell them to the highest bidders. You guessed it: Hart gatecrashes the party. Chaos ensues with gunfire galore.
Ultimately everything boils down to a contest of wits and balls between Hart and Pike. No sooner than Hart thinks that he has rescued all the women than his plans to awry. He finds himself in a neck and neck fight for life with Poke, and Abilene finds herself back in Pike's hands.
Although the pared-down to absolute essentials plot is basically worth only two stars, the captivating 3-D is worth four stars. Nothing gets in the way of the action, least of all any involved dialogue. Anybody that loves Spaghetti westerns, Tony Anthony movies, and 3-D actioneer will crave this oater.
Lloyd Battista of "Treasure of the Four Crowns," Wolf Lowenthal of "Get Mean," Gene Quintaro of "Sudden Dead" wrote their screenplay from Tony Pettito's story. Tony Anthony wrote under the pseudonym of Tony Pettito. The narrative portion of this western is reminiscent in some ways of Ferdinando Baldni's "Blindman," except our hero retains his sight. Similarly, the villains, led by Pike (Gene Quintaro) and his obese brother Polk (hefty Richard Palacios of "Return of the Seven"), have amassed an army of six-gunners with an arrow-shooting Indian, and they raid towns on the American side of the border for lovely dames to sell for lots of loot in Mexico. The first mistake that these bastards make occurs when they interrupt a marriage in a church where H.H. Hart (Tony Anthony of "The Stranger" movies) is getting himself hitched to beautiful Abilene (Victoria Abril of "High Heels") and wound him and abduct her. Naturally, when Hart recovers from his wounds, he rides out to recover his bride. Meantime, Pike has rounded up two wagon loads of women and he has set up an auction to sell them to the highest bidders. You guessed it: Hart gatecrashes the party. Chaos ensues with gunfire galore.
Ultimately everything boils down to a contest of wits and balls between Hart and Pike. No sooner than Hart thinks that he has rescued all the women than his plans to awry. He finds himself in a neck and neck fight for life with Poke, and Abilene finds herself back in Pike's hands.
Although the pared-down to absolute essentials plot is basically worth only two stars, the captivating 3-D is worth four stars. Nothing gets in the way of the action, least of all any involved dialogue. Anybody that loves Spaghetti westerns, Tony Anthony movies, and 3-D actioneer will crave this oater.