Tom Corbett (Franco Nero) receives an urgent message to return home. When he arrives he finds the family ranch now in the hands of a stranger and his brother Jeff (George Hilton) a washed up drunk. He’s urged to leave town by just about everyone but when an old family friend is murdered he’s determined to get to the bottom of things, wherever that may lead.
Massacre Time was directed by Lucio Fulci, a man usually associated with horror movies. This was the first, and arguably the best, of his three spaghetti westerns, and while the idea of a man returning home to find his home is no longer his own may not be an unusual one, there are enough twists to the tale to make it a cut above the average.
The familial entangelments of the plot are far from the western norm, having more in common with a soap opera, but to say more would spoil the surprise. It certainly adds an unusual, almost Shakespearian, character dynamic which gives the actors plenty to work with.
Graphic violence isn’t unusual in a spaghetti western and Massacre Time has, as the title would suggest, more than its fair share. What is unusual is the bullwhip duel that’s fought between Nero and Nino Castelnuovo as Jason ‘Junior’ Scott the new ranch owners son. As you’d expect Fulci does a decent job with the action but he really excels himself with this whip fight, aided by Castelnuovo extraordinary performance.
Of the three main characters it’s Castelnuovo who makes the biggest impact as the barking mad son. He’s a total psychopath, whether watching a man torn to pieces by dogs or shooting an unarmed boy down in cold blood, he’s got a demented gleam in his eye and an evil smirk on his lips. Without doubt one of the standout Italian western villains and the films most striking asset.
Franco Nero made this the same year as Django but his performance here lacks the impact of Corbucci’s film. It doesn’t help that as characters go Tom Corbett is a little on the dull side, easily overshadowed by brother Jeff. George Hilton (as the elder Corbett sibling) steals Nero’s thunder as the drunk who still knows how to use a gun (shades of Rio Bravo?). It’s a flamboyant, over the top performance that (I think) marked Hilton’s first appearance in a spaghetti.
Not a classic but well worth a look for Castelnuovo’s scene stealing psycho and Hilton’s drunken gunslinger.
