Apache Blood (1973)

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This mess ranks up there, or down there, with the absolute worst films ever made, Western or otherwise.

Bold, unimportant narration tells us that Chief Yellow Shirt (Ray Danton) is hunting down white men because they broke a treaty. He and all three of his braves find a small squad of U.S. soldiers and take after them. Among the soldiers is Sam Glass (Dewitt Lee), a mountain man who is attacked by a bear in the funniest scene in the movie and left for dead. I assume one of the writers was familiar with "The Revenant" story. Sam eventually regains consciousness and starts fighting off the warriors while trying to catch up with the soldiers. Eventually, both sides are killed down to Yellow Shirt and Sam, who now race across the desert, try to outsmart each other, and survive wind storms, snakes, and hallucinations of their respective women.

I cannot give too much away from the ending because I am still trying to figure it out. Let me just say it is perhaps the stupidest plot twist of all time, and do not take this as a peaking of your curiosity to go find this thing. The editing seems to have been done with a chainsaw. This is beyond bad, this is so inept you will want to hurl things at the television, whether it be physical objects or your semi-digested lunch. The acting is terrible, the direction seems to have been achieved by one of my toddlers, and the film is padded so heavily to stretch this to an hour and a half, you could use the screenplay as a flotation device in the event of a water landing.

How this was made, marketed, dubbed onto video, and found its way to my local video store decades ago is a great mystery that may never be answered through the coming ages, but I guarantee you will be hard pressed to watch a more idiotic example of film making. Also known as "Pursuit," this is a waste of time and money.

Stats:
(1973) 86 min. (1/2 *) out of five stars
-Directed by Vern Piehl
-Screenplay by Dewitt Lee and Jack Lee
-Cast: Ray Danton, Dewitt Lee, Troy Nabors, Diane Taylor, Jason Clark, Dave Robart, William Chadwick, Carl Mancini, Earl Baldwin, Wilford 'Whizzer' White, Carl Nelson, Jack Lee, Eva Kovacs
(R)