Reviewed by Steve Fenton
Timeless tough talk: “You
dirty cowards! You ain’t got the guts ta
stand up to a real man!”
Tales of lone renegade braves going on relentless Indian vendettas
against the encroaching palefaces were certainly nothing new to westerns of
virtually any ethnic stamp, the Spaghetti / Paella kind included. For example, Jack Starrett’s
analogously-titled CRY BLOOD, APACHE
(USA, 1970) and Robert Aldrich’s APACHE
(USA, 1954), starring Burt Lancaster; as well as Rodolfo de Anda’s ‘tortilla
westerns’ INDIO (Mexico, 1971) and
the highly similar CUCHILLO /
“Blade” (Mexico, 1977), both of which – especially the latter – were greatly
influenced by the westerns of Italian maestro Sergio Corbucci (who directed the
Italian/Spanish NAVAJO JOE [1966],
another film which fits into the same subgenre as our present title. Hell, come to think of it, in 1986 even Bruno
Mattei made not just one but two belated lowly variations of his own in the
form of WHITE APACHE and SCALPS, the latter featuring a female
aboriginal avenger, just for something different). Produced by David F. Friedman, William Allen
Castleman’s gory exploitation actioner JOHNNY
FIRECLOUD (USA, 1974) told an
analogous tale, albeit contemporized to the 1970s rather than being set in the
19th century. “Larry
Ludman”/Fabrizio de Angelis’ THUNDER
/ a.k.a. THUNDER WARRIOR (Italy,
1983) – which spawned two carbon-copy sequels – was yet another European
variation of the same theme, again set in more modern times.
For the present low-budget entry, Tom Quillen’s APACHE BLOOD (a.k.a. PURSUIT,
1975) – a by-product of the more cynical post-SOLDIER BLUE era, originating from a similar off-Hollywood shadow
realm as the ’60s sex ’n’
violence “roughies”, if minus the sex – a formerly peaceable, law-abiding
Mescalero brave named Yellow Shirt (the top-billed Ray Danton) goes on a
one-man warpath – albeit with a little assist here and there from his tribal
brethren – against seemingly the entire paleface race after a tenuous peace
treaty between reds and whites is callously violated by the latter (so what
else is new!). Before you can say “White
man speak with forked tongue!” Danton is off offing us untrustworthy bastards
right, left and center.
A
troop of Bluecoat white-eyes cavalrymen – potential buzzard bait all – find
themselves cut-off out in the thick of hostile Apache territory. Following a near-fatal bear attack – shades
of Richard Harris’ terrifying fate in Richard C. Sarafian’s Spanish-shot,
American-set outdoorsy adventure MAN IN
THE WILDERNESS (1971) – the troopers’ mountain man scout Sam Glass (DeWitt
Lee, who also co-wrote the screenplay) ‘returns from the dead’ in his shallow
grave. Clinging feebly to life,
summoning all his willpower Glass claws his way back to the land of the living
(and the dying), whereupon he bludgeons an Apache attacker’s skull in with a
rock right in his own recently-vacated premature burial place just to drive
home the bitter irony of his predicament.
Hobbled and limping on a crude stick crutch, Glass thereafter
desperately strives to elude Indians who dog his tracks relentlessly, while
using whatever improvised defensive weapons he finds at hand (e.g., rocks,
cacti, etc). An Indian pursuer’s head is
turned into an instant pin-cushion by airborne cactus fragments (talk about a
‘spiked’ haircut!). Glass also utilizes
a makeshift ‘minefield’ of buried cactus parts whose sharp spines wreak havoc
with the unshod hooves of the Apaches’ ponies.
Elsewhere, a luckless trooper is buried up to his neck in desert sand,
whereupon his head is then used as a surrogate polo-ball during a ride-by group
bludgeoning by mounted bucks (a variation of an unenviable fate seen in more
than one spaghetti western). The
gruesome aftermath of soldiers tortured by Indians is also shown. APACHE
BLOOD’s crowning act of cynicism (*SPOILER ALERT! Skip down to the next
paragraph if you don’t wanna know how it ends!) has Glass the severely-stressed
hero – having courageously battled and slogged his way ever onward towards
sanctuary within a distant Cavalry fort as tenuous and unreachable as a desert
oasis wavering hazily on the horizon – getting ‘accidentally’ plugged between
the eyes by a trigger-happy and evidently short-sighted sentry right within
spitting distance of its front gate.

Really
looking the part, the grim-faced Danton – a Euro cinema alumnus who never
actually appeared in a western bearing the spaghetti brand – wears white
war-paint accessorized with a blood-red headband. Playing a cavalryman, Troy Nabors does a slimly-disguised
Slim Pickens impersonation (e.g., “It’s shore takin’ him a helluva long time ta
die!”)
Using
only the barest minimum of dialogue just for exposition’s sake, the laconic
narrative instead accents gutsy, grisly survivalist action, pitting man not
just against his fellow man and the so-called lower lifeforms – in this
unforgiving wilderness world, the lowest lifeform is very definitely Man
himself, be he white or red – but against the very elements themselves,
too. A common ploy of the ultra-cheap
westerns (e.g., Fred Williamson’s and Larry G. Spangler’s thematically and
structurally highly similar JOSHUA
[1976]; which I reviewed in Weng’s Chop zine #4) was to set
their action out amidst the rural wilds, in this case Arizona, so as to save on
either renting or building costly sets.
In vain hopes of concealing its cheapness of construction, the
rickety-picket firewood ‘stockade’ is only glimpsed in quick cutaways. Just in case we might have missed them the
first time ’round, in best exploitation fashion the film closes with a handy
montage which recaps all its preceding brutalities. Often seeming at odds with the sometimes
grisly content – including bloody knifings and scalpings – Ed Norton’s at times
overly sentimental score sticks to well-trod folksy / rootsy American trails. That said, bulk of the music seems to have
been composed with a much ‘bigger’ production in mind than this small-scale
rural stalk ’n’ slay actioner. The soundtrack also incorporates generic
low-rent library file tracks; some of which I know I’ve also heard on various
cheapo horror flicks of the period somewhere along the line, only I can’t quite
place which ones. End-theme song lyrics
include the phrase “a man called She” (shades of Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named
Sue”?!).
Either
erroneously or intentionally, APACHE
BLOOD (presented in a scratchy full-frame print) was included as part of
Mill Creek Entertainment’s 2008 sell-through DVD box set generically entitled Spaghetti Westerns; totaling twenty
titles in all, of which it is the sole non-‘authentic’ example.* Novices not
bothering to pay too much attention might be unlikely to notice, however. It has also appeared on DVD in the UK
courtesy of Pegasus, in what appears to be the same scratchy full-frame print, and for you VHS collectors, it was released by A.N.E. Home Video under its alternate title of PURSUIT.
Ignore
the IMDb’s current pitifully low user rating (not that you should generally put
much stock in their entirely subjective ratings anyway), because, despite what
they say, this grim and gritty film definitely warrants a far higher one than
the measly “3.0” it gets at said site.
So by all means check it out and decide for yourself!
*
In 2005, Mill Creek Entertainment also released APACHE BLOOD as part of their massive Gunslinger Classics – 50 Movie Pack, and then in 2010, Mill Creek
Entertainment released an even larger collection of spaghetti westerns simply
titled Spaghetti Westerns – 44 Movie
Collection, which included APACHE
BLOOD once again.