Klaus Kinski is one of the few B list performers I'll go out of my way to see, and this Euro-West feature is a good example of his sinister presence on screen. You'll generally catch him as a villain since he so naturally looks the part, though in "And God Said to Cain' he portrays an anti-hero out for revenge against the man who framed him for a gold robbery during the Civil war. The film is a good one if you stay with the basic premise, but it's sure tough to follow the action as most, probably three quarters of the picture takes place at night. Complicating matters further, Kinski's character, Gary Hamilton, traverses the underground caves of Santa Maria while on his mission of revenge. A conveniently conceived tornado also hits town to lend a further atmospheric dimension to the story, though that doesn't amount to much more than a big wind.
The picture provides a couple of cool elements I haven't seen in a Western before, much less the spaghetti variety. The dripping water in the cave in an early scene seemed to provide a natural musical accompaniment to the movements on screen just before Hamilton took out his first victim. Later on, I thought it was pretty clever the way Hamilton made a bell ringer out of Miguel, if you know what I mean.
I'm certainly not as well versed on the genre as many of the other posters on this board, and I usually learn a lot about a film by reading what others have to say. What I found most interesting about this film's background was the horror influence inspired by it's director Antonio Margheriti. In the picture, those elements are used to good effect to enhance and build tension in the story. The outcome itself is fairly predictable, so it's up to the ride that gets you there to be as entertaining as possible.
The picture provides a couple of cool elements I haven't seen in a Western before, much less the spaghetti variety. The dripping water in the cave in an early scene seemed to provide a natural musical accompaniment to the movements on screen just before Hamilton took out his first victim. Later on, I thought it was pretty clever the way Hamilton made a bell ringer out of Miguel, if you know what I mean.
I'm certainly not as well versed on the genre as many of the other posters on this board, and I usually learn a lot about a film by reading what others have to say. What I found most interesting about this film's background was the horror influence inspired by it's director Antonio Margheriti. In the picture, those elements are used to good effect to enhance and build tension in the story. The outcome itself is fairly predictable, so it's up to the ride that gets you there to be as entertaining as possible.