Review: Apache Blood

Thought this was the main character? Nope.

For Christmas this year, I received one of those inexpensive Spaghetti Western compilations with "20 classic features." "Classic" is a debatable adjective for some of these movies, but it's awesome to get my hands on Spaghettis that I may not have otherwise picked up. A lot of fans of the genre advise people to not buy these box sets because they expect the movies to be crappy. However, I think to fully appreciate and understand the genre, one needs to embrace the good and the bad... and even the ugly.

At a Glance
"Apache Blood" (1975) is not actually a Spaghetti Western, go figure, but I guess it was put in the set because it was considered too weird by American Western standards in the 70s. It was directed by Vern Piehl and stars Ray Danton as a vengeful Apache named Yellow Shirt and Dewitt Lee as Sam Glass, a mountain man who I guess has something to do with the American cavalry. I don't know. Here's a brief synopsis brought to you by the back of the DVD tin (that's right, I got the classy set): "An Apache brave, the surviving member of his tribe, vows to avenge his people by finding and killing the soldiers responsible for their deaths."

Story and Characters
Somehow this movie is able to take a very simple concept and make it utterly confusing. First of all, the characterization of the Apaches and white men seems off; we're supposed to root for Yellow Shirt because the cavalrymen murdered his peaceful tribe, but they are portrayed as generally nice guys. What really boggles my mind, is why so much time is spent on Sam Glass and his struggle to get away from Yellow Shirt. Honestly, they should have just called the movie "Mountain Man Blood." There are also a lot of continuity errors or at least a lot of unexplained things that make the continuity lose its credibility. First off, there is some weird sequence where I swear to God Sam murders one of the cavalrymen he's with, but the dude is shown alive a few seconds later and the scene is never mentioned again. Maybe it was a dream, but I would have had no idea that it was unless someone told me. Another mystery is where Yellow Shirt's Indian posse came from. He and his wife were mentioned as the sole survivors of their tribe in the opening narration, and yet here are three other guys on the same mission. I suppose they could be from another tribe of Apaches, but it is never explained how they teamed up with Yellow Shirt if that was the case. The biggest mystery lies in why Yellow Shirt is chasing Sam in the first place. It wasn't mentioned that he was among the men who attacked the Apache tribe, and his character didn't really harbor any noticeable hatred toward the Indians. I guess Yellow Shirt may have thought he was a part of the attack when Sam was hanging around with the cavalrymen in the woods, but that would be out of character. Yellow Shirt is the kind of man who knows who he's after.

Filming and Locations
The scenery isn't particularly enthralling and the cinematography is cheap. I think the fact that a horse visibly takes a crap during one scene tells you all you need to know.

Music
There are pretty much only two songs that play during the whole 89 minutes, but the song during the last scene is surprisingly good. The theme at the end is bizarrely amusing and the music for the credits sounds like it was made for a comedy.

Overall
"Apache Blood" is pretty bad. It's not the worst movie ever*, but it's really only entertaining if you think discontinuity is funny.

Final Verdict: 1/5
 *The worst movie ever is "Wyatt Earp." Don't watch it.