8/10
Great nihlistic western
22 January 2022
It's interesting how sometimes a director will make many movies throughout their career but only one will get noticed. Having looked at Joaquin Marchent's filmography it seems like most of his movies haven't been watched by many people on IMDb. I haven't seen any of his other movies either and probably never will but I enjoyed Cut Throats Nine a lot. The reputation that it has garnered is most likely due to it being probably the most violent and gruesome euro-western made at a time when a lot of them were getting made. But I would argue that the gore wasn't what makes the movie great and that it was a bit excessive. I'm not bothered by such things and it looks rather fake anyway but the insistence of adding gore by the producers cheapens the movie a bit. Then again maybe without it the movie wouldn't have developed a cult following and I would've never seen it.

What makes this movie special is just how dark it is. It's a snowy western just like The Great Silence but it's even more nihilistic than that movie was. Every character in Cut-Throats Nine apart from the lieutenant and his daughter is deplorable. You don't want any of them to survive yet they are the characters we as viewers follow for the whole movie. I find such movies fascinating but I can understand why some can't connect with them. On top of that, the soundtrack is very ominous and the atmosphere is top-notch. Everything adds up into making the film feel absolutely bleak and with no hope in sight. It's a great example of a euro-western that takes the genre and adds a few things on top to make it more interesting. In this case it's making it a survival movie with despicable characters. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes euro-westerns or hopeless cinema watches it even if they don't like gore as it's a very interesting and incredibly atmospheric western.
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