Four of the Apocalypse
Four of the Apocalypse
| 12 August 1975 (USA)
Four of the Apocalypse Trailers

Four petty criminals, three men and a woman, wander through the trackless terrain of the Wild West Utah and are hounded by a sadistic bandit.

Reviews
YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
qmtv Gambler, Pregnant Prostitute, Drunk, and Insane get together, bump into some Mormons, crazy murderous Mexican bandit. The drunk dies, the Insane feeds the dead drunk to the gambler and prostitute. Insane is left behind in the ghost town. The prostitute gives birth in a cold male only mining town. The town adopts the baby. The Gambler gets vengeance on the Mexican bandit.This movie is different. The main ingredient is Fulci. There are some serious kills and gore. There is emotion.It is a bit slow moving. Worst part was the music. The story was fine. Great opening scene with the town people vigilantly, killing the gamblers and drunks in town. The ending was a bit rushed. But it all works well. All the actors did well, even Fabio Testi. I hated Testi's performance in What Have You Done with Solange, and I hate that movie. But here Testi does well. The dubbing is what it is, not great. But the emotion of the film comes through.This is not the best Fulci. But it's worth checking out. Some great moments.Rating is C, or 5 stars.
jimlacy2003 (Only minor spoilers if at all here, just wanted to warn you) I saw this movie listed as one to see out of Lucio Fulci works so I had to go out and find it.Now it's pretty rough at a lot of parts; Raw, violent, but then not all that unusual for movies of the period 1975' and for Westerns in general as there is often a major (read violent) revenge element(s).Some neat things about this movie. I actually live close to some of the the named areas of the film (although the actual movie was filmed in Spain, Italy and Austria). Altaville, California is an actual small old mining town. It's just past historic Angels Camp, California. While there is not much historic buildings left (the old school house comes to mind), unlike Angels Camp that has quite a bit remaining. Also "Poker Flat" is a near by town (very little remaining) and I'm sure there are others.All these real locations shouldn't be that surprising though as Bret Harte is a well known and prolific writer who lived here. He's up there with the likes of Mark Twain (who also lived in the area for a while). Many locations here in this area are named after him (Harte). While doubtful the events from the movie are actual, undoubtedly he based them on real people as are the locations real.One of the best scenes, one of the most real, was towards the end when the baby was delivered. As it was true back in the gold rush days there were very few women and children here. I'm sure the whole town(s) would have been delighted at the blessed birth of a child. It was a touching moment and added a nice contrast between the over the top violence and roughness; as were the scenes where the protagonist learned to Love and protect the poor misguided girl. Maybe a lot of the men of the old west were rough & tough characters (living out in the elements, working long hard hours) but they were still human. This is the greatness of Lucio Fulci to bring out these extremes. Great classic Western film, highly recommended.
Billy Wiggins A weird, ambitious western opus from Lucio Fulci, a veteran of the horror genre best known to western fans as the director of Franco Nero's MASSACRE TIME. (His signature horror pic is probably 1979's ZOMBIE.) Fulci here delivers an episodic, dreamy, somewhat languorous picture, marked by bursts of emotion and drama.We find gambler Stubby (Fabio Testi) tossed in a jail cell with a hopeless drunk; a loopy, hallucination-prone black man; and a winsome prostitute. During a raid on the town, the four prisoners are set free to escape, and wander the desert to ponder their next move.(Spoilers follow:) In a series of vignettes, the group discovers the prostitute's pregnancy, meets up with a pack of religious settlers, is set upon by cruel bandit Tomas Milian, holes up in an abandoned town during a rainstorm, aid in the delivery of the baby, and eventually have a showdown with Milian. This might seem like a pretty straightforward checklist of events, but the presentation and mood of the picture make it all feel like a fevered, surreal dream.The cast features some familiar faces in fine performances: Testi (A/K/A Stet Carson) is handsome and charismatic. We expect Stubby to be a cocky wisecracker, he turns out to be pensive and brooding: Testi's wide-eyed good looks are perfect for the character. Michael Pollard (of BONNIE AND CLYDE) is appropriately pathetic as the town drunk; Harry Baird, who I know from TRINITY AND SARTANA, THOSE SONS OF... does a great job of being earnest and bright-eyed at the start and escalating into full-on freak-out. As the mysterious and evil bandit Chaco, Tomas Milian is mesmerizing as always, and brings a rock-star swagger to the part of a merciless thug.The direction by Fulci is such that scenes shift from one setting to the next rather jarringly; we may go from a dusty, sun-drenched vista to a fog-heavy valley just like that. It helps to paint the story as a weird, disorienting dream. You can almost imagine that the four leads are being depicted making their way through the afterlife, or purgatory, or judgment of some kind. Not a straightforward narrative, but really engrossing.There is not much action or western-style stunt-work in the picture; however, several scenes of violence are conveyed with the aid of very gory, bloody makeup effects, which are shocking but effective. The unusual song score also aids in the film's impact. Several soft-rock-style narrative songs, whose lyrics mimic the action on screen, are initially unexpected and off-putting but seem to fit well the more you hear them. The songs are done in English by what sounds like a typical mid-70s acoustic rock ensemble, led by composers Vince Tempera and Massimo DeLuca.I would suggest this to Fulci fans first and foremost. But definitely not for newcomers to the Spaghetti West, you folks should see MASSACRE TIME by Fulci instead. Also, if you are a fan of dream-like, trippy western epics like KEOMA or of David Lynch-style weirdness, you might want to take a look.B-/C+, 6.5 out of 10 stars.
lastliberal Four strangers meet in the Salt Flat jail, and are bonded out by one, a gambler named Stubby (Fabio Testi). The other members of the group in Lucio Fulci's western are Bunny (Lynne Frederick), a pregnant prostitute, Clem (Michael J. Pollard), a drunk, and Bud (Harry Baird), who is apparently a few beers short of a six pack.They escape town and head 200 miles away to start over when they are met by Chaco (Tomas Milian), who is pretty handy with a gun, but appears to be more handy with a knife when he is skinning the Sheriff.Chaco feeds them an hallucinogen and ties them up. He proceeds to rape Bunny and leave them for dead.The journey continues and the party dies one by one until there is only one left - one bent on revenge.Good acting by Testi and Milian. The only drawback was the fact that I watched the American version, which had almost 20 minutes cut from the original.