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Great Film overall

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Brutal, bleak and gory, this is an effective Spanish spaghetti western with no good guys at all. There is a hint at the start when we see the seven chain gang prisoners being led by the seeming good guy and his daughter, because counting up the procession, it is clear that the nine of the title includes them too. An engaging film, however desolate, but this is always going down all the way. There are one or two moments of respite but there are too many killings, a rape and hints of cannibalism, for this to be likely to have any happy ending. A rather good plot line, some excellent music, good photography in what looks like very difficult conditions in the mountains and yes, some really nasty killings.

A band of military prisoners being transported through the mountains come across of group of bandits who kill all but one of the military, crashing the wagon full of the chain-gang convicts. The surviving Sgt. Brown (Claudio Undari) must protect his daughter Sarah (Emma Cohen), and help get the convicts to their destination. They have no food, no transport, and the gang of killers, rapists and thieves are becoming increasingly cunning and violent. When they discover that the chain binding them together is made of the gold the bandits were looking for, the convicts begin squabbling between themselves, while Sgt. Brown must work out which of the bandits raped and murdered his wife.Billed as the 'goriest and most violent western ever made', the film certainly has its fare share of gruesome moments (although I would assume there are plenty of gorier and more violent westerns out there). Cut-Throats Nine isn't in the vein of classic American westerns that starred the likes of John Wayne and Henry Fonda, but more like the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, and the ultra-violent revisionists like Sam Peckinpah. Only with more guts, charred bodies, rape and general unpleasantness. Given it's many flaws, it's actually not a bad western, and the extra horror adds to the dirty, grimy feel of its exploitation roots.Technically, the film is quite well shot, with the snowy mountains providing a beautiful backdrop to the carnage. Sgt. Brown's story is peppered with flashback scenes shot in dream-like slow-motion, as is some of the violence. It brings to mind Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), where the gun-fights were poetic, mythic, and almost pornographic. But the film often becomes tiresomely grim, with little or none of the characters being remotely sympathetic. Well, maybe that's the point, showing how relentless and wild the 'West' was. Hardly up to the standard of the aforementioned The Wild Bunch and Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974 - also Peckinpah), which were both nasty masterpieces, but a pleasingly entertaining and exploitative western.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

This is a really riveting film. I found it to be somewhat hit and miss, but it's good points definitely outweigh the bad points.The best part of the movie is the story itself. The plot is quite original. Although it involves both gold and revenge, it is not your typical quest for gold or revenge tale, and things don't happen the way you think they are going to. The movie really draws you in as the motivations, interactions and relationships between nine very violent individuals unfold as they make their perilous trek across the wintery landscape.I think the splatter aspect of this movie has been over-emphasized in descriptions of the film. It is quite violent, and it has some gore, but it's not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by any means. Don't watch it expecting a horror movie, because it's really just a western with a gory violent streak. There is a really cool scene where one of the criminals thinks he sees a ghost. It would have been even better if they had made the ghost real instead of just a figment of his imagination.There is some really good camera work and interesting use of flashback scenes that add a touch of surrealism to the movie, although a couple of the flashback scenes involve the gambler murdering a woman from his past and have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Those particular scenes should have been left out because they only serve to confuse.The biggest disappointment here is the music score. I know this is a Spanish western, but I would have liked it to have a more spaghetti sounding score. Instead it sounds like a very good Hollywood style score, which puts it several notches below the average spaghetti western score in my book.This is still a great movie overall. It doesn't have as many stylistic touches as a lot of other Eurowesterns, but this incredible story will keep you glued to the edge of your seat.

Conedandos a vivir (1972) was and is marketed purely as a violent exploitation film. Viewers approach it that way and either find it terribly vacant and crude or enjoy those aspects of the movie that are hyped up by hucksters. As the euro-western was widely marketed as violent and cynical, this advertising tactic that often blinds viewers to what is actually occurring on-screen. This is unfortunate as this movie is actually a well thought out and decently executed western that provides the nihilistic capstone to an interesting series of Spanish westerns made in the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s. Viewed in that tradition, as the terminal point in a genre narrative that began much earlier in films like Joaquin Marchent's own El Sabor de la venganza (1963), it is a moving and fascinating movie.Contrary to the reputation of the "Mediterranean westerns" made in Italy and Spain in the 1960s and 70s, these movies are not simply absurd and extreme distortions of the original American genre somewhat like Red River (1948) or Rio Bravo (1959) projected into a hall of mirrors. Instead of warped conventions without significance, these movies contained their own views of society and morality. Many of the westerns written or directed by Spaniards have a very interesting perspective of the nature of violence that is central to plot and character. Violence is a contagion that consumes everything and everyone in it's vicinity. In movies like El Hombre que mató a Billy el Niño (1967), El Sabor de la venganza (1963), or Garringo (1969) victims are transformed into victimizers through the alchemy of good intentions in a corrupt society. There is always a character who has a close personal relationship with the victim-turned-victimizer who both opposes the political corruption and also it's products, including their friend or brother/son. Outlaws are portrayed in bestial terms, a pack dominated by the most brutal one. These movies always end with an ambiguous sacrifice to necessity.With Condenados a vivir, this formula reaches it's fullest development. Isolated in the wilderness, there is nothing to stall the corrosive assault of brutality. Every member of the group is degraded and virtually every on-screen character is dead by the final credits. Sarah Brown (Emma Cohen) is the only character who opposes this effect in any way, though her response is ambiguous as it involves a hopeless and absolute nihilism. In this series of movies, the typical genre ending of a shoot-out in the street or synonymous act becomes endlessly complicated. The exorcism of violence by violence must, according to the logic of these narratives, only perpetuate the contagion – an inescapable circularity.This movie has a sort of resurrection of the dead hero in the manner of the Italian brand of western, but here it occurs in the delusions of an insane fugitive. However, whereas in the Italian movies this return-from-the-grave is followed by a sort of liberation of a community, in this movie this is only a guilt-ridden and confused hallucination.As in most of these Spanish movies, the technical execution lags far behind the narrative sophistication. The "gore-effects" will strike you as laughable if you are in the right mood. However, all-in-all, this movie is a successful and sincere b-movie, and as such I recommend it. With El Sabor de la venganza, this is Joaquin Marchent's best western.Top spaghetti western list http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849907Average SWs http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849889For fanatics only (bottom of the barrel) http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=21849890