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DVD The Scarlet Worm
 Run time: 93 min Rating: 5.4 Genres: Western Director: Michael Fredianelli Writers: David Lambert Stars: Aaron Stielstra, Dan van Husen, Brett Halsey |
| Storyline A middle-aged hired gun named Print (Aaron Stielstra) is obsessed with having style and poetry to his assassinations. He has been working with loyalty for his boss, Mr. Paul (Montgomery Ford), for years. But his latest assignment – the killing of a brothel owner (Dan van Husen) who mandates cruel abortions on his whores – presents two challenges: he must train a young understudy during the assignment, and he’s been told to pull off the killing “quick and dirty” — which may not leave time for Print’s usual, obsessively imaginative methods. Written by Anonymous |
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| Plot Keywords: hired gun, abortion, poetry, prostitute, cattle | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 27 August 2011 (USA) |
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| Box Office Budget: $25,000 (estimated) |
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DVD The Scarlet Worm
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4 comments
Nowadays I reckon we're lucky if we get a great western every decade or so. This doesn't qualify for great, but it is good. If you're expecting "Hollywood" – raise your expectations… this is better.
The action in the movie plays well. With influences of Peckinpah mixed with ("early not quite there yet") John Woo; credit where it's due, it didn't get unreal.
The dialog could have been tweaked better, I reckon, there was ample opportunity through the settings which were done well. The scene in front of the barber shop is an example of where the script could have gone deeper, and pushed this movie into great. Overall I liked the pacing, the arc and the various spread of characters. It didn't get overly deep into the characters, but neither were they shallow – there's an edge to all of them. I thought Montgomery Ford did a fine job.
One thing I really liked about this western? It treats the audience with a bit of respect – allowing me to draw my own conclusions; meeting with my expectations in terms of credibility, there were no "cop outs" in plot. What happened was a logical, if whacky series of events.
If you really like westerns, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I am very surprised by the low rating the movie seems to have – strange; maybe good, hard-boiled westerns are just out of style…
1909. Philosophical middle-aged dandy assassin Print (a terrific performance by Aaron Stielstra) gets assigned by his boss Mr. Paul (Brett Halsey in fine form) to kill wicked, yet scrupulous brothel owner Heinrich Kley (superbly played with chilling calm by Dan van Husen), who regularly performs abortions on his whores whenever they get impregnated. Moreover, Print has to show crude novice Lee (well played with scruffy conviction by Derek Hertig) the ropes. As the unusual premise alone suggests, this is anything but your standard shoot 'em up oater. Those expecting a clear-cut delineation between the good boys and the bad guys will be sorely disappointed; instead we get several fascinatingly complex and flawed individuals who aren't exactly endearing (Lee in particular at first is pretty odious and unlikable while Kley isn't entirely hateful because of his strongly felt religious beliefs and stance that his brothel serves a useful purpose for the community at large), but manage to be interesting just the same. In addition, the turn of the century old west shown here is an extremely harsh and grimy place. Director Michael Fredianell's brings a dazzling cinematic style and a fiercely uncompromising gritty sensibility to the dark material while David Lambert's bold and edgy script offers an intelligent and idiosyncratic meditation on style, manners, and morality. Granted, the expected shoot outs are bloody as all hell and staged with real rip-roaring brio, plus there's a handy helping of inevitable nudity from the prostitutes at the bordello, but it's the way this picture subverts basic genre conventions and squeezes a maximum amount of surprisingly polished production value from its modest budget that in turn gives it extra substance and resonance. Further enhanced by Stielstra's moody eclectic score and Michael A. Martinez's striking cinematography, this film overall rates as one powerful and provocative pip.
A low film budget, especially one attached to a period film as demanding as a western, doesn't have to reflect what can be brought to a movie when gritty acting and a hard-nosed storyline are both unafraid of controversy, or breaking archetypes.
Here, the film-makers make that their saving grace. WORM may lack sweep and grandeur, but it compensates for its meager funding by creating a world of believable, albeit strange, characters, who are caught in writer David Lambert's bleak narrative and poetic dialogue. Both make their mark in a tale of a cynical killer hired by a cattle-baron to sterilize a town of its brothel owner. The killer Print (played excellently here by Aaron Stielstra) can see the brothel-owner (a chilling Dan van Husen) carries an unhealthy amount of Biblical fury about sin, but Print comes to learn the man is far more dangerous for his own philosophies and this soon leads to Print encountering (and unleashing) an enormous bloodbath.
All divided into cinematic chapters and told in a bold and muscular style by director Michael Fredianelli, cinematographer Michael Martinez also create a claustrophobic wilderness out of the luckless town and its inhabitants. Complementing this is the cast, which one doesn't see in a big budget western. More reflective of 60s and 70s westerns, the characters show damage and hard-lifestyle, this further reinforced by the shocking circumstances and violence that erupt in a moments's notice to often punish the innocent. The movie additionally benefits from Aaron Stielstra's somber score, complete with strangled electric guitars, ominous Morricone outbursts of noise, and a memorable finale.
Though thought-provoking, WORM is troubling movie and one without pandering resolutions to its good guy/bad guy scenario. Like equally morally conflicted westerns like Peckinpah's "PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID", "RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND" or the savage "THE HUNTING PARTY", here men are compromised throughout by their own codes of conduct and the brutal instinct to survive. Without the film's superb acting and direction, here both strong enough to make one forget the large scale adventuring to appear in something as banal as "COWBOYS AND ALIENS", the movie might have never surpassed its economic limitations and played out like an exploitation flick. Instead, WORM is a harrowing and unforgettable alternative to shoot-'em-ups or the kind of popular western entertainment that asks no questions of its audience. Prepare to be be impressed.
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This effort by a band of six young cinephiles works well. Don't watch it expecting "High Noon" quality acting and scripting. But if you're looking for a highly original, yet true to genre Western, I recommend "The Scarlet Worm."
It was released by "Unearthed Films" so I expected a 30-or-more year old film, literally dug up out of old B movie archives. But this is a new effort, made in 2010 and released in 2011. The setting is the early 1900s, and plot is complex, including traditional cattle rustling, revenge killings and more. It's dark, gritty style is evident in the gunfight sequences and in the sympathetic, non-sensationalist treatment of the girls in the brothel. It held my attention right to the last as it unfolded.
A couple of things to note: First, it has some pretty violent scenes so I wouldn't make it a family-night movie. Second, it features some classic Western movie stars whose heyday was decades ago but whose names you might remember, like Montgomery Ford and Dan van Husen. They and their young compadres give this low-budget movie panache. Enjoy, pardner.