The character of Django quickly became a franchise in this cannibalising sub-genre, with the best directors exploiting the character?s brutal, deathly aura as developed by Sergio Corbucci. The elusive Giulio Questi?s Django Kill is one of the genre?s gems, a rough diamond of skewered surrealism, grisly violence and layers of style. It?s one of the most sought after spaghettis, and sneaked out on British video with heavy cuts that, nevertheless, can?t dim Questi?s warped vision or the film?s power. The emasculated Fletcher tape - shorn of almost 20 minutes of footage - sells at around ?45 these days, but thankfully the export market has thrown up a Japanese laserdisc print - reputedly the longest available in English - and there?s also of course the astonishing decision by the BBC to screen the film as part of their ?Forbidden? season, preceded by infuriatingly extended snooker coverage and Alex Cox?s refreshingly sober introduction. Whether this means that the tantalising prospect of an Aktiv/Arthouse release remains a mere mirage in a desert of best-laid plans remains to be seen. Certainly some of the gore - in spite of Cox?s ultimately unfounded optimism as the print shown was cut anyway - would trouble censors even today, filmed with such a nihilistic emphasis that, considered in isolation, could give the impression of gratuitousness and/or crude sensationalism on the director?s part. Admirers of the macabre however, and those interested in leftfield film-making, will no doubt appreciate the inclusion of bloody, horrific violence as a sideswipe at genre expectations, the limits and trappings of escapism, a challenge not just to acceptable standards of taste but to purists. It?s an ideal companion piece to his fabulous chicken chiller Death Laid an Egg (1967), where the rules of another genre, the giallo, are also mercilessly subverted.

Tomas Milian, later to symbolise the genre?s left-wing leanings in films like Corbucci?s Companeros(1970), takes the title role, even though he?s never actually referred to as Django (the translation of the original Italian title - IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT - is a more accurate reflection of the panic and peril he faces). He?s a double crossed bandit who crawls out of his desert grave only to find his ex-partners have been butchered and strung up by the grotesque townsfolk of a settlement known as ?the unhappy place? (with considerable understatement) by the Indians.

Soon Django has the villainous Zorro (prolific Roberto Camardiel) and his black-clad "muchachos" to contend with, as a hunt for stolen gold drags the film further into nightmare territory. The subplots sketch a grossly distorted portrait of small-town spaghetti life, typified by the storekeeper Hagerman?s (Paco Sanz) imprisonment of his demented wife Lizabeth (Patrizia Valturri), and the astounding scene where bandit leader Piero Lulli?s corpse is torn into shreds when it?s learned he was shot with gold bullets. Django becomes dangerously involved with the goings on at the storekeeper?s, but is powerless, and unwilling, to rescue the movie?s highly original damsel in distress figure. Handed over to Zorro for torture, he is eventually released by one of his mystical Indian companions, who wander in and out of the action like ghosts. Django wipes out the muchachos, including Zorro, while its appropriate that Hagerman is consumed by his own corruption in a fiery conclusion, an intensely gothic climax that recalls the House Of Usher as the evil storekeeper is confronted by his insane spouse and dies smothered by molten gold with his house burning around him.

Hagerman personifies the town?s cancer, leading the sheeplike locals in a mock-religious persecution of his rival Tembler (Milo Quesada) who runs the saloon, condemning him for living openly with a woman, Flory (Marilu Tolo), out of wedlock. Hagerman?s self-imposed moral authority - combined with all consuming avarice - drives him to cold-bloodedly murder Tembler and convince the townsfolk the killing was a crime of passion perpetrated by Flory and her lover - Django. As if this wasn?t twisted enough, there?s a young Ray Lovelock as Tembler?s unstable son Evan, who shreds his prospective stepmother?s frocks in disgust and begs Django to take him away. The boy?s personal tragedy is complete when he is taken hostage by Zorro and subjected to leering homosexual games, all of which debauchery compels him to shoot himself. Tembler and Flory?s grief is tempered by the convenience of having a place to stash their share of the gold - Evan?s coffin.


Straight from the titles, it?s clear Questi has no intention of playing by the rules. A maddening montage of flashbacks introduces the plot, as Django is rescued by two wandering Indians alerted by "the voice of the dead". Cinematographer Franco Delli Colli deserves much of the credit for the power of these scenes, where scorching sunlight forms an hallucinatory backdrop to the treacherous massacre that sets the macabre ball rolling. In tandem with the kind of jagged, dissonant editing that?s the main stylistic pulse of Death Laid an Egg, Delli Colli?s contribution ensures the film has that rugged atmosphere so characteristic of Italian westerns. The town, so often the innocent bystander, is peopled by self-righteous cheats, swindlers, psychos and reprobates, alternately fearful and hateful of this mysterious stranger who, unlike them, has the stamp of self-sufficiency and freedom (a vague echo of this theme can be found in Clint Eastwood?s High Plains Drifter). Underscoring this impression Questi introduces the town with perverse, disconcerting images and details - a scrawny, naked little boy watches the procession of Lulli and his gang down the main street; a man lounges with his foot on his niece?s head - cleverly altering our focus from the murderous outlaws to the community that, in more traditional fare, Lulli and co. would be expected to terrorise. "It?s kind of black in here, don?t seem natural", comments one of the outlaws in an ominous inkling of the twisted tale to follow.

Tomas Milian, in his second genre appearance after Eugenio Martin?s The Ugly Ones (1966), makes an excellent job of the lead, using his extraordinary charisma and a believable mixture of bravado and bewilderment. As in his debut he?s an ambiguous figure, first seen taking part in a brutal robbery yet the closest thing to a hero Questi allows his audience, presented at one point in a Christ-like crucifixion pose in a cell full of rats, bats, snakes and lizards. Alongside him Piero Lulli is characteristically wicked as Oaks, his traitorous partner in the gold heist, sneering contempt for "motherless Mexicans" and forcing Django - a half breed - and his peons to dig their own mass grave, a powerful symbol of scorn motivated by prejudice and greed.

There?s plenty of meat to chew on, with Django almost tangential to the increasingly deranged and barbarous activities of both the ?good? townspeople and the muchachos, to whom Zorro is an ebullient father figure, though of the Fred West variety rather than Bill Cosby. The subtext of Django coming back to life only to find himself in hell on hearth fits neatly with Questi?s heavily stylised reversal of western clich?s. His approach can be seen as both an extension, and a questioning, of the themes and motifs of the Italian model at the time. The amoral, superhuman prowess of the films? anti-heroes had bolstered box office takings and shielded much of the brutality behind a comic book facade, but Questi?s unforgiving commentary on spaghetti lore and the nature of violence has the effect of tearing away the flesh to reveal an extremely twisted world, where good guys are really bad and the nominal hero can only watch the killings escalate. It?s no wonder the film was savaged on international release, especially in blinkered Britain where Corbucci?s original was itself ignominiously banned for so many years. Here the violence is sadistic, gleefully cruel like that of children, and Questi?s closing images are an implicit nod to this notion, reflecting his own apparent disdain for the barbaric behaviour of his characters and anticipating the more celebrated and obvious use of children for ironic/symbolic effect in films as diverse as The Wild Bunch and Mario Bava?s playful Blood Bath (1971). The almost gloating sadism reaches a visceral peak with the unflinching on-screen scalping of one of Django?s Indian sidekicks.

While the inferior ?official? sequel Django Strikes Again(1987) was the only one to be endorsed by the character?s creator, Django Kill is infinitely closer in tone to his vision, while remaining a truly inspired work in its own respect, its singularity mirrored by the sparing genre contributions of its chief personnel. Director Questi, co-scenarist Franco Arcalli and composer Ivan Vandor would not return to the western, while the exceptional photography of Delli Colli graced just a handful of other entries. This diversity of attitudes and experience renders the film a fresh perspective, loaded with the aesthetic and thematic concerns of European political/art cinema (Arcalli, a veteran in his field until his death in 1978, worked with such giants as Bertolucci, Antonioni and spaghetti architect Sergio Leone on Once Upon a Time in America; Vandor?s scores include Antonioni?s The Passenger). All this is filtered through Questi?s surrealist style, the director clearly more interested in the framework of the Italian western as a means of stretching the boundaries of commercial cinema and exploring the human condition. Never as self-consciously serious as the ?art? tag may imply, Django Kill! is equally savage of humour as it is of vision, sarcastic parrots and gross machismo balancing out the grave-robbing and gore.
KEVIN GRANT