User Reviews

A movie about rape, murder and revenge. The misic score is about the best thing in this movie, which isn't saying much. The plot is ridiculous and the dubbing is awful. Avoid at all costs.

I saw this movie when it first came out in was known as a "Pussycat Theater." It would probably be R rated today. The movie was devoid of art with a hint of story. I recall one scene where a barmaid is shot in her breast. I'm not sure why she was shot or why I recall it, but over 35 years later it's still disturbing.

Of course, there is gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity, and gratuitous bad language. Briefly the plot begins to hold interest when the two main characters save a poor traveler and his daughter from bad guys. But then the traveler gives our "heros" the only thing he has of value .... his daughter. The scene reflects on the total pointlessness of the movie.

The Wicked Die Slow is a farce of a film, with no story and a bunch of unrelated scenes of no value.

Awful low quality trash, I couldn't sit through this one.

Of all the early Cannon movies, I would never have expected that a roughie American version of an Italian western would be one of the ones released on blu ray - Ronin Flix - but life is always so surprising.

The Kid (Gary Allen, one of the movie's writers) and his Mexican sidekick Amarillo (Jeff Kanew, the other one of the movie's writers) ride through the Wild West of New Jersey, a place where The Kid meets and falls in love with a young girl played by Susannah Campbell. Most of this movie will have her being assaulted by bandits, miscreates and even her father, who kills himself and gets buried by The Kid.

William K. Hennigar directed Mr. Mari's Girls and Seven Days Too Long, another early Cannon movie. As for Allen, he would go on to act in everything from Annie Hall to Alice, Sweet Alice and The Sentinel while Kanew would direct Revenge of the Nerds, Gotcha!, Tough Guys, Troop Beverly Hills and V. I. Warshawski.

This is a more than sleazy regional oddity. I can get behind lots of scummy stuff in a movie, but one that has near-constant sexual assault isn't really my thing. Your mileage - I hope not - may vary.

(I'm not sure there are 'spoilers', but i checked the box to cover myself).

I must first correct the reviewer ‘gpfalk’ on one thing; whilst there is gratuitous violence and a fair bit of topless nudity, there is in fact no bad language at all, which was probably the norm for most films of that era.

The barmaid scene is certainly disturbing and although the poor girl is not raped, she is subject to other abuse and tortures that involve ‘biting’ and the savage use of a broken bottle. Whilst ‘Django’ (1966) was banned for years because of it’s ‘severed ear’ scene, the barmaid scene was not cut from this Cannon/Rank Video release, nor the film banned as far as i know. Then again, TWDS was destined for obscurity, Django wasn’t.

There is a touch of ‘Hammer Horror’ style soft porn and vague element of ‘vampires’ about parts of this film, with the busty women in darkened woods and bloodied mouths. It does seem as though the director, William Hennigar, has dabbled in making porn flicks judging by some of the titles he was involved with. Whether or not he did, i don’t know.

Quite a few of the characters appear to be homeless. The father and daughter hang out and sleep on the ground in the woods. ‘Bobby Ryan’, the bounty hunting Preacher’s first victim does likewise.

The Preacher is quite an interesting character. He has the most lines which mostly involve forcing his victims to “repeat after me” and pray aloud. Following their execution this is followed by bible readings (with no audience but himself). Not an original idea nowadays; we later had Lee Van Cleef as a gun carrying Priest in ‘God’s Gun’ and of course Sam L. Jackson doing the ‘cold hearted’ religious quotes thing before blowing someone away in ‘Pulp Fiction’, but The Wicked Die Slow at least came before them.

It is an odd film and an unusual ‘western’. It tries to imitate the Spaghetti Westerns, with Gary Allen and Jeff Kanew standing in for Eastwood and Wallach as the poncho wearing Gringo ('The Kid')and the ‘Tuco’-like Mexican gunfighter ('Armadillo'). But, good or bad, it creates it’s own style.

I enjoyed the joking around by the locals in the Saloon as they poke fun at The Kid and Armadillo.. “Will ya look at what just come in..” “Coupla rejects from Pancho Villa!” Morons, but i liked the humor in it.

I do have a favourite character.. and that’s the gang leader who is, i believe, the ‘Steve Rivard’ as credited. His maniacal laughter and sarcastic mutterings i enjoyed. He would have made a great ‘Joker’ in Batman IMO. But he appears not to turn up in anything else. Neither do most of the others. Jeff Kanew of course goes on to direct. I don’t think the Gary Allen in this film is the same ‘Gary Allen’ who is cast in many later films.

Not most peoples cuppa, this flick, but i found it interesting enough to put up clips of this rare film on YouTube if ya’ll wanna check it out.

"The Wicked Die Slow" begins with the Kid framing his own brother for rape and leaving him to die at the hands of a bounty-hunting preacher. Then the Kid teams up with Armadillo,a Mexican adventurer and together they blaze a trail across untamed territory infested with savage Indians and ruthless outlaws."The Wicked Die Slow" is an amateurish western with pretty sleazy and grim mood plus some disturbing scenes of violence. The barmaid torture scene is especially vicious and memorable. The girl is violated with an broken bottle by the gang which turn up at the same saloon where Armadillo and the Kid have just left after a shootout with some locals. There is plenty of nudity in "The Wicked Die Slow" and some nice spaghetti western Clint Eastwood impersonation.6 gang-raping Indians out of 10.