Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

FightingWesterner Ex-convict James Caan is released from prison and sets out to exact some long overdue vengeance on Aldo Ray, the man who murdered his family years before and apparently the rest of the town as well.There's some trashy fun at first but things run out of steam pretty quick and never recover.A paper thin story, the obnoxious free-wheeling 1970's style direction, and the bad funk score are all pretty off-putting, as is the terrible performance by Stephanie Powers, who looks like Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon and is so verbally challenged she makes Tonto look like a radio talk show host!The great Sammy Davis Jr. is sadly wasted in this. His leather-clad gunfighter character was the most entertaining thing in the movie and really deserved a better script!

MARIO GAUCI One of the more memorable sequences in MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973) features a major supporting character meeting her doom while at a movie screening preceded by the trailer for GONE WITH THE WEST; by sheer coincidence, within the same week I rented the former on DVD, I also came across the latter – having rented this particular budget-priced Western collection primarily because it also included THE JACKALS (1967), a remake of William A. Wellman's YELLOW SKY (1948) which I intend to revisit presently in tribute to its recently deceased co-star, Richard Widmark! The footage seen in MESSIAH OF EVIL – of a mean-looking gunslinger played by Sammy Davis Jr.(!) – promised a fun movie but, even if his cameo did prove to be its brightest spot, having now had the misfortune to sit through the damn thing in its entirety, it's perfectly clear now that the trailer had been inserted only because GONE WITH THE WEST was an as-yet unreleased debacle which needed all the exposure it could get! This truly lamentable attempt at a Western spoof was evidently shot prior to James Caan attaining stardom with THE GODFATHER (1972) and, although he does manage a couple of decent bits, he is a long, long way from his scene-stealing turn as Mississippi in Howard Hawks' EL DORADO (1966). Despite some surprising nudity by both of them, Stefanie Powers is simply terrible as an all-Spanish-speaking Indian girl(!) and Barbara Werle fares no better as Aldo Ray's nymphomaniac wife. Ray himself is embarrassing as a grizzled cowboy and Robert Walker Jr. barely registers at all in the role of an ineffectual sheriff. Even less rewarding is seeing Hollywood veteran Heather Angel as a loony old woman – who is actually an elderly version of the same character played by Powers; not that it matters much but the film opens in a modern-day setting and the bulk of the narrative is made up of Angel's reminiscences (by which time, it seems, she had learned to muster the English language).Retitling the film to LITTLE MOON AND JUD McGRAW (which is the name sported by the print I watched) only served to jettison the puerile original but did zilch to mask the film's glaringly rampant deficiencies (particularly those of an editorial nature). Director Bernard Girard may have been behind a couple of interesting movies prior to this one – the James Coburn caper, DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966) and the Christopher Walken psychological outing, THE MIND SNATCHERS (1972) – but it's no surprise at all that GONE WITH THE WEST sealed his fate in filmdom forever. There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the worst movies of the Seventies but, arguably, I'd even go so far as to name it the worst Western I ever laid eyes on!

Gatorman9 Though this film seems to have had a cute idea for a tongue-in-cheek western send-up at its heart, the result was so bad it reminds one of the cheesy pornographic films from the same era. Surely the production values are that low, and and as others have noted, the editing was such as should have earned any film-school student a failing grade. How a name-brand a cast like this one ever got involved with something so poor is to be wondered at. Perhaps no less wondrous is why really awful films like these get released on DVD while so many other infinitely more redeeming ones still fail to see the light of day (I personally am still waiting for "The Secret of Santa Vittoria" with Anthony Quinn). Rest assured, younger viewers, that this disaster is far, far below even the average quality of films of its time. Speaking of which, the 1975 release date cited in these pages cannot be accurate because the Oldsmobile Cutlass so prominently featured in the beginning of the film (yet another waste of otherwise perfectly good celluloid in connection with this movie) was not on the market until the 1978 model year.

charlot60 there are really no words to describe how bad this movie is. thank god we bought it at the dollar store! the only way my sister and i watched it was in fast forward! we couldn't stop laughing, we only watched when we guessed the man was singing, we knew someone was dead! Stephanie powers had the best role, she really did not have much to say or do. i hope they all got paid a lot of money for this mess of a movie.you can tell this movie was made in the late seventies. the music and the way the camera angles were so bad, i thought i was watching a music video. the only way to watch this movie is with a lot of popcorn and a big drink.