Much like rock-&-roll and professional wrestling, the Acid Western is one of the few truly American art forms. It’s a deconstructionist approach to the highly stylised American-myth making of the Western, itself a deeply political genre, that was steeped in the counter-cultural of the 60s. Whilst it’s heavily influenced by European new wave cinema, and its most famous creator is Chilean-French, it’s fundamentally America looking at itself looking at itself, and that’s strange before you get to all the uneasy weirdness that gets poured on top. And given the amount of religious fervor in The Old West, it’s almost an inevitability that Robert Downey Sr – satirist, firebrand, and reputably terrible father – would make one that’s based on the life of Jesus.
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Greaser’s Palace (1972) is deeply weird west
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When you go looking for a werewolf movie and discover there is one called “Werewolves on wheels”, that pitches itself as a cross between Sons of Anarchy, The Devil’s Rain and Easy Rider, there really is no option but to watch it. And, after sitting through these particular 85 minutes of 1971 low-budget horror, I can happily confirm that it’s the finest weird-west satanic-horror biker-gang lycanthrope road moview I’ve ever seen. Then again, writer and director Michel Levesque doesn’t exactly have much competition in those stakes – which makes it a shame that there are a lot of nice ideas without enough solid execution.
This one was suggested to me by a chum called Rhys Roberts. This proves two things: firstly, that I haven’t heard of every strange film on the planet and thus am always willing to give them a go when someone recommends one. Secondly, that Rhys is a cruel and terrible person. The auteur behind it was world-renowned artist Fredric Hobbs, pioneer of ART ECO and Parade Sculpture, and this movie is a testament as to why probably you haven’t heard of any of his cinematic works.
Trash or Treasure 