Seven convicts chained together are travelling by carriage under the charge of Sgt Brown, a widower who not only has to guard these murderers, but also has to keep them away from his daughter. Worse still, one of them is responsible for the murder of his wife, and to add to the trauma, a bunch of bandits stop the carriage, kill the guards, and send the horses into a panic, wrecking the carriage and stranding everyone in the wilderness. The day has gone badly enough, and now Sgt. Brown has to get these guys to the nearest town, while they sing a song about how they are going to kill him the moment he turns his back! For a change this Western doesn't take place in a sandy desert, but up on a snowy mountain, which adds to the already grim situation. To make things even worse, the bandits discover that Sgt Brown might be travelling with more than prisoners!It's basically one of those 'people trapped in the wilderness' films (like Four Rode Out – Leslie Neilson as a bad guy!). I'm guessing it probably had some sort of influence on Tarantino's Hateful Eight, although it'll be about 2034 by the time I get round to watching that. This film is probably more famous for its exploitation elements rather than being a Western. Often described as the most violent, gory Western ever made, it does deliver on the goods – as long as you understand it's very gory by Western standards, not horror standards. People have their throats slit, get graphically shot in the face, burned alive, disembowelled and such like, but it's not a constant gore fest either. Luckily it's also got a story to tell as well, all filmed in an almost cinema verite fashion (I think that's French for 'delibarately half- arsed'). It's also a film where you shouldn't get too attached to any particular character, and even throws in some kind of hallucinogenic zombie attack! Grim stuff, all the way through.

Cut-Throats 9 (1972) is by far the most gory western ever made. Is it as scary and gory as they hyped it to be by issuing terror masks the answer is no. I don't know what these reviewers are griping over name another American or Eurowestern so gory and violent together? The Wild Bunch violent yes not gory. The story is good and to me well written it grasps your attention from beginning to end and unravels a subplot of why the Sgt. had these particular men selected to be escorted 400 miles to Fort. Green. I also thought it was clever how they made the chains out of gold disguising them as ordinary chains from the gold mine to Ft. Green to fool the bandits as well as the prisoners. It seems there has been quite a few mixed emotions about this later SW but lets face it the genre was fading out fast most ideas where out played and director Marchent gives us a breath of fresh air with the ingredients of mixing the cold terrain with violence and gore and fresh new story ideas made a fantastic little movie. I was very impressed with Robert Hundar's acting as well as Emma Cohen who played his daughter. The best of the bad guys was Dandy Tom (Alberto Dalbes)who was sensational. The music was good with eerie whistles and sounds. I don't know what there is to dislike about this movie but SW fans well like the ending and should understand why the Sgt's daughter did what she did. in her frame of mind to lose everything why go on living (family, lover, and dignity).

I knew this Spanish-made Spaghetti Western had some kind of notoriety in Euro-Cult circles but, since I was totally unfamiliar with its director, I didn't really expect a lot from it; as it turned out, it's one of the nastiest films of its kind – surpassing even DJANGO, KILL! (1967) in its bleakness, nihilism and graphic depiction of extreme violence! The plot itself is highly unusual: a cart-load of slimy, murdering convicts is being transported through dangerous terrain in the mountains by a cavalry officer and his daughter; the catch is that one of them was responsible for the brutal killing of the soldier's wife – and, ingeniously, their gold cargo (coveted by bandits) has been disguised as the length of chain shackling the prisoners together! Soon, they lose their transport, provisions and one of their number – and they're forced to continue the journey on foot; the already tenuous relationship within the party continues to deteriorate – as the sex-crazed men turn on the girl, leading the soldier to himself commit cold-blooded murder; then, half-way through the picture, the convicts get the upper hand and the soldier (ostensibly, the hero figure) is killed in gory fashion! Still, the girl has a surprising ally in one of the remaining prisoners…except that his tenderness is belied by the final revelation concerning the nature of his crimes (most of the characters' back-story is effectively retold in intermittent flashbacks heralded by freeze-framing)! The effective choral score (reminiscent of Gothic horror movies, no less) admirably evokes the danger and the savagery of the narrative; while most of the cast members were also unknown to me even when their faces looked vaguely familiar, I especially appreciated the contribution of a couple of Jess Franco alumni – namely Emma Cohen (from the startling if still little-known THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR [1973]) as the only female presence in the film of any stature and Alberto Dalbes (star of all three of the Spaniard's Universal horror pastiches) as the gambler leader of the chain gang.To get to the brutality, it comes in all varieties (including a shot to the back of a woman's head at point-blank range) – though, especially disturbing, is its propensity for severed limbs, charred corpses and, worst of all, gut-spilling!! I should mention here that the script (courtesy of renowned Euro-Cult scribe Santiago Moncada) also includes a sequence where one of the prisoners suffers a hallucination of the murdered soldier's corpse coming back to life to haunt him. The finale, then, sees no survivors – as the long-suffering girl decides to take the matter into her own fragile little hands with a single, definite explosive act.

A group of soldiers is transporting seven prisoners in a wagon through the snow to a new prison. After an attack by a band of hijackers, most of the soldiers are dead and the wagon is destroyed. The only survivors - one soldier, his daughter, and seven murderous prisoners. Can the lone soldier get the prisoners to their destination on is own? I do not claim to be a Euro-Western ( I don't know if I can call it a Spaghetti Western as it is a Spanish film) expert , but Cut-Throats Nine is the most violent, bloodiest, and most sadistic Euro-Western I've seen. The brutality and gore on display feel more like a horror movie. You've got bodies thrown in a fire, up-close shootings to the face, rape, and a stabbing that seems to pull the whole intestine out. Fulci would be proud.Combine the brutality and violence with the desolate, snowy setting, and it creates a very bleak movie. There's very little to be happy about. The ending fits perfectly with the mood of the rest of the film. It's like a visualization of despair on screen. Powerful stuff.