Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Western horror film from 2007. That movie is "Left for Dead".
Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie, other than that it's a western horror movie. Which, interestingly enough, I don't think I've ever seen a Western horror movie before ever. I've seen Westerns that delve into heavy drama at times, but never have I seen this genre go into horror before. So, this ought to be interesting to see here.
Now the only other thing that I know about this movie is it's director, who goes by the name of Albert Pyun. And I've covered two of his films for this series. The first one was "Arcade", which I covered way back in the lead up to my 100th episode at the time. And I quite enjoyed it, despite it's flaws. And the other film that I reviewed from him is something that I didn't even know he directed until I looked up his entire filmography in preparation for this review. That movie was the "Captain America" film from 1990. Which surprised me honestly because, again, I didn't even know that he directed that thing to begin with. And much like with "Arcade", I did kinda enjoy it, despite it's flaws.
So, the man knows, well *knew* how to make interesting movies before sadly passing away in 2022. But setting his passing aside, I'm hoping for this movie to continue the legacy he had in making interesting movies. I don't know if it's gonna be any good, but I'm hoping to find out for myself. So, without further ado, it is time to kick back, relax, and check out "Left for Dead".
15 minutes later
OK, I have to ask this. Why is this alleged rapist the only one who has subtitles, despite the fact that he speaks perfect English? I really don't understand that, especially considering these guys that are chasing after him also speak perfectly fine English too. So why bother with subtitles at all? It just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.
19 minutes later
Wait, why do these women have Clementine bound in chains? I thought she was with them to search for Sentenza. So, why is it then do they have her in chains? I'm gonna be honest, guys, this movie's beginning to not make sense. Mind you, I'm still interested to see where this movie's going, I just want it to make some sense is all.
15 minutes later
Guys, I really wish this movie would make up it's mind on whether or not Blake should speak English or Spanish. I swear to God, guys, this movie is just flip-flopping back and forth between Blake speaking English and then speaking Spanish along with English subtitles. Pick a language for him and stick with it! Because this is starting to get old, really quick.
16 minutes later
You know what's really sad, guys? Barring the shoddy-looking CG, almost everything else apart from the story is actually pretty good for what it is. Mind you, it isn't great, but I can see that there is effort put into it. I just wish the writing was more interesting, but sadly, it really hasn't improved at all. In fact, I'm actually getting a little bit bored with this movie. And that itself is also really fucking sad when you think about it.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Left for Dead". I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...where the hell do I even begin with this...? Well, I suppose I can start by saying that I really wanted to like this movie. I really did. I mean, it's a Western film, and most of those do turn out to be pretty good. At least, to me, they do, because it's a genre that I grew up on thanks to my Dad. And I was hoping that this movie, knowing that it was also a horror film, I wanted to really like it. And, in the end, I just wound up being really disappointed by it.
So, I'm gonna start this off by talking about one of the biggest problems, if not *the* biggest problem with this movie as a whole: the writing. I am gonna say that this movie started off really promising with it's plot. Where 15 years ago, this priest, who's later named Mobius, ends up getting a woman pregnant, which in turn makes these group of whores end up killing everyone in town. And I mean every man, woman, and child. Which they then kill the woman that the priest hooked up with and also caused her to get an abortion in a rather sick, and disgusting way. It's where they also kill the priest, who ends up becoming a vengeful spirit after dying, and then gets his revenge against the whores who killed his spouse and unborn baby. Basically, guys, he's a cowboy version of Ghost Rider.
And on the flipside of all this, we have our main character, Clementine, who's out for vengeance against someone named Sentenza, who left her along with their infant child all by themselves. And she's not alone on this journey, because there's also another group prostitutes who are after Sentenza, when one of them got raped and impregnated by Sentenza. What's strange about this though is that the impregnated prostitute claims that it wasn't rape since, apparently, she told him to do whatever he wanted to do to her. I don't know why, but honestly, I'm not going to question that kind of logic. Believe me, that is the least of this movie's writing problems.
Before I go more into what I disliked about the writing, I am gonna say this much. The beginning of the movie and it's ending, is actually the most interesting parts about the movie. As I already mentioned a moment ago, Mobius, ends up becoming a vengeful spirit by killing all the whores who were involved in the killing of his spouse and unborn child. Now admittedly, what sorta ruins it a bit is the fact that most of it was done in text, meaning that they mostly tell you what happens, while we get a few very short clips of how it all went down. It sorta cheapens the experience a little bit, but honestly, I'm able to overlook it, because the opening still caught my interest. And as for the ending, without trying to spoil it, ends in a rather dark fashion. Granted, I know that the movie is a horror film, but towards the end of it, it is a really dark scene. That, to me, was totally worth it to sit through the whole movie for.
And on that note, that brings me into the biggest problem with the writing as a whole. The middle portion of the movie is where the whole thing falls apart. One big reason is simply because it's boring as shit. I was trying to stay the fuck awake for most of it because the story was just going nowhere. Not only that, but it started to become convoluted the moment that I saw Clementine in chains. Which, again, makes no sense because she was with these prostitutes to hunt down Sentenza. And when I saw her in chains, I honestly had no idea why she was like that. The only thing I can think of is that they found out that Blake, her former husband, was the one who ran off and they believe that he impregnated one of their girls, Michelle, and that they're slowly torturing him to death by impaling the side of his body with a meat hook, just so they can get him to admit that he raped her. Which still doesn't really make any sense because I don't recall him ever being this Sentenza guy. I mean, it's possible that he might've been, but because this made no sense to me, I just kinda rolled with it since nothing else about it made no sense whatsoever.
As for the characters, well, I would *love* to tell you that the characters in this movie are deep and are worth caring for, but honestly, I can't. The only two exceptions to this are Clementine, and that's mainly because of her actress that made her character stand out a little bit more. Her actual character is a little bit one-notish, but it is understandable storywise. And the other character that is worth mentioning is Mobius, who I've already mentioned his backstory a couple of times already. In fact, thinking about it now, if this story had been focused more on Mobius getting his revenge on the prostitutes that killed his girl, I would've enjoyed it a lot more. Because then, the movie could've turned into a Western horror revenge flick. That would've been much better than the story we got here. Again, the premise that is here sounds really cool, and the beginning and ending of it is totally worth watching. But it's the middle that ruins it entirely because it's bullshit nonsense, plus the padding too, since this movie does crawl to a screeching halt the moment the middle portion rears it's ugly head.
So yeah, guys, the writing here is just a massive disappointment. What could've been sounded better than what we already had. Now, despite all that, the acting here is really solid. The best actress by default has to go to Victoria Maurette as Clementine Templeton. She is great here. Her character is, again, a little bit on the shallow side, but her acting is what makes her performance stand out tremendously. She is great here. The rest of the cast is pretty good too. They're not as standout as Victoria Maurette was, but they still do a good job with their given roles.
Special effects in this movie are mostly terrible. Now yes, I totally understand that this is a very low budget movie, but I still have to call it out. The CG in this movie is horrendous. Most of it used for stuff like gunshots, especially against Mobius. Because whenever you see any part of his body shot out, it looks as if it was almost chroma-keyed. However, I can't quite use that excuse here, because this movie was shot on location in Argentina. So, they had to use some original CG for it, but it still looks terrible. Also, for no real reason at all, there's a CG rendered skull that's used in the final shot of the movie and it also looks horrible, too. The only thing that looks sorta decent are the blood and gore effects, because they're done practically. They actually look pretty cool. Especially that one scene I mentioned earlier in regards to Mobius's backstory. I won't mention it in graphic detail, but the effects for it still look really good for the intention of it's scene. So overall, the CG is terrible, but the practical effects are pretty good.
I want to touch upon editing for a moment. Because there's something about this movie that really kinda irked me a bit. And that is the over usage of freeze frames. In case you don't know, freeze frames are used whenever a movie freezes on a still frame. There are so many of them in this movie that you could literally turn it into a drinking game. If you ever get a chance to watch this movie, take a shot every single time that a freeze frame is used in this movie. I guarantee you that by the time this movie ends, you will be totally wasted. It really is that obnoxious. Now, I probably wouldn't have been bothered by this if they did this maybe once or twice, but when you go over that count, it starts to show a problem in which it's all style, no substance. And also, it ties in back to the padding issue I mentioned a moment ago. Since there are so many freeze frame shots, it brings the movie down some to a screeching halt, and they really could've cut back on these particular shots. So yeah, the editing in this movie is pretty shit.
Camerawork here, minus the shitty editing, is pretty good. The lighting here lit perfectly fine. But then again, most of this movie was filmed outdoors, and on location, so it's to be expected. Sound-mix here is mostly decent, but there were a couple of scenes where some of the sound quality, whenever an actor is speaking their dialogue, sounded a bit quiet. Those could've been fined-tuned a bit. The music here is actually pretty good. It totally fits the atmosphere and mood of this movie, and for a Western, it works very well here. So, I'm gonna give the music here a definite positive.
But unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives here. So with that, can I recommend "Left for Dead"? Unfortunately no, I can't. This movie is just a massive disappointment. And that's coming from someone who grew up on Westerns. This movie could've been amazing, but with a script this convoluted and terrible, there's no way I can recommend this thing to you guys. Had the middle portion of the movie been written better, or they would've gone with my suggestion, it could've potentially been great. But as is, it's just not a very good movie. Now, it's not the worst thing I've seen, especially for this year, but it's still very lackluster. So sadly, I cannot recommend it to anybody, unless if you have a morbid curiosity like I did. So yeah...this movie...god, this thing could've been great. But you know what? I still have a lot of other Western movies to satisfy me. Perhaps I'll maybe go and watch something like "McLintock!", cause I love that movie to pieces. So I'm probably gonna go do that next once I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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