Five Bloody Graves

Five Bloody Graves (1970)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Drive-in flick about lone gunman Ben Thompson (Robert Dix) who loses his wife and sets out on his own. He ends up battling evil Apaches and eventually comes across a wide range of characters and tries to protect them from the Indians who are looking for scalps. If you want a quality Western then it would be best to skip this thing and check out some John Ford films. This movie here is pretty bad on one hand but when you compare it to other films by director Adamson then you might realize that the man certainly did much worse. I think this film here is a tad bit better than some of the director's other work simply because he pretty much throws everything into this movie. We got the crazy gunfighter, countless crazed Indians, traveling prostitutes, a preacher (played by John Carradine) and countless other characters. None of the actors give what you would call a good performance but at the same time they all fit their roles nicely and are at least entertaining to watch. I thought Dix was mildly interesting in the role of the gunfighter and Scott Brady adds some fun as a rival. John "Bud" Carlos plays the main Indian and while he doesn't look the part he at least makes the role fun. Carradine was obviously picking up a paycheck but he's always fun to watch and especially if you're a fan of his work. No matter what trash a filmmaker would give him to read he'd at least give it his all and that's certainly true here. Adamson really doesn't know how to say no as we get just about everything you'd expect to see in a film like this. We get several knife fights that end in deaths. We get countless gunfights that end in deaths. We have a couple horse chases, a few naughty women, a voice-over from Death himself and of course we got the before mentioned Carradine so what else would you want? As with most Adamson films the major downfall is the horrid pacing, which grows old very quickly and at 90-minutes the thing is simply too long to really be enjoyed.