Arrow Video

Maniacal outlaws thirsting for blood! Corrupt capitalists profiting from the suffering of the common folk! Desperate people pushed to violent revenge! The Italian western has never been grittier than in this quartet of later-period cult classics, in which the trademark cynicism of the genre escalates into the radical pessimism of the late 1960s / early 1970s world.

In Paolo Bianchinis I Want Him Dead (1968), American actor Craig Hill (The Bloodstained Shadow) stars as an ex-Confederate soldier who vows revenge after his sister is raped and murdered, in so doing setting him on a collision course with a dastardly plot to disrupt peace talks between the North and South. Next, in Edoardo Mulargias El Puro (1969; a.k.a. The Rewards Yours... The Mans Mine), western icon Robert Woods (My Name is Pecos) gives arguably his greatest performance as a legendary gunfighter forced to emerge from hiding after the bounty hunters on his tail murder the tender-hearted barmaid (Rosalba Neri, Smile Before Death) who offered him a new life.

Then, in Mario Camus Wrath of the Wind (1970), genre superstar Terence Hill (They Call Me Trinity) shows his darker side as an assassin who finds his conscience when he and his brother (Mario Pardo, Knife of Ice) are hired by a ruthless landholder (Fernando Rey, The French Connection) to kill the leaders of a growing labor movement. Finally, Fabio Testi (What Have You Done to Solange?) and Tomas Milian (Dont Torture a Duckling) star in Lucio Fulcis The Four of the Apocalypse (1975), in which a quartet of misfits go from sharing the same jail cell to embarking on a savage odyssey that will lead to torture, rape and cannibalism. Preyed upon by a ruthless bandit, the foursome fight for their lives - until the time comes for revenge.

Four of the Italian westerns hardest, cruelest, bloodiest classics erupt from the screen in this feature-packed box set frDetta