And Snipes’ signature character of Blade will come to mind. As that Marvel Comics hero was cursed with vampirism, this film’s hero harbors a curse that turns the dead into the undead. Therefore, High Noon of the Living Dead would not be an inaccurate title for Gallowwalkers.
Not to overpraise the film, but with its blend of anachronistic action and the supernatural in an Old West setting, it’s the movie that 2010’s Jonah Hex wanted to be. As Aman (a man? amen?), a braided, face-painted Snipes seeks revenge on the members of a rootin’-tootin’ gang who killed his best girl.
You’ll thrill as he faces a silver-haired villain whose lips are stitched shut; a man with no epidermis, which has to suck with all that dust and heat; a goon covered in nasty face blisters; various horned, human-creature hybrids; and assorted minions seemingly inspired by Mad Max sequels. Aman’s make-me-famous move is snapping his opponents’ heads clean off their necks, exposed spine dripping with blood.
Tanit Phoenix (TV’s Femme Fatales) is on deck as a friendly hooker, and she fills that corset job suitably. Patrick Bergin (The Asylum’s Shark Week) plays the town sheriff, while wrassler Dallas Page (né Diamond) essays the role of one Skullbucket. Director/co-writer Andrew Goth (appropriate last name, that) keeps things crazed enough to make up for deficiencies elsewhere, thereby earning a six-gun salute! —Rod Lott
Hey! Read This:
• Femme Fatales: The Complete Second Season DVD review
• Jonah Hex Blu-ray review
• Mad Max Trilogy Blu-ray review
• Shark Week Blu-ray review
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2013.