Plot (or what there is of it)-- Moving West the parents of two boys are murdered by predatory white men pretending to be Indians. Years later, a grotesque killer called the Rawhide Terror picks off men from a town nearby to where the two boys were orphaned. So what's going on. If you like a lot of aimless riding around greater LA, then you may like this feeble oater. The main problem is that it's an edited-down version of a half-done chapter serial. Too bad someone didn't turn on the lights since the characters come and go in no particular order, while cheap chase scenes go on and on. Then too, characters change names for no apparent reason, so if you can figure out the interplay, you belong at MIT. Now I don't blame the producers for getting what money they could out of the abortion, but I really pity anyone who paid to see it. The results do manage a creepy moment or two with the Terror's gruesome face, but except for horror movies' favorite location-- Bronson Canyon Cave-- the oater's a real bomb.

Traveling across the prairie in a covered wagon, a family is attacked and the parents slain by a band of outlaws posing as renegade Indians. With the murderous deed done, the eldest of the two surviving brothers disappears hysterically laughing into the brush, never to be seen again.Years later, the outlaws are now legitimate businessmen of the town of Red Rock, being terrorized and systematically murdered by a mysterious fiend known only as the Rawhide Killer, a buck-toothed loony with a strip of rawhide across his nose!Being quite possibly the stiffest western of the 1930's, it does have a bit of charm thanks to the odd nature of the mad killer, his incredible wardrobe, and some inventive use of murder techniques.Writer-producer Victor Adamson, better known as Denver Dixon, was the father of drive-in filmmaker Al Adamson, the director of another much maligned western, Five Bloody Graves.

Rawhide Terror, The (1934) * (out of 4) Incredibly bad "B" picture that started off as a 12-chapter serial but when the money fell through the producers decided to just make a western. To bring more money in they sold the picture as the first horror/western but this film is so bad it makes both genres look bad. A killer known as "The Rawhide Killer" is strangling various members of a small town and no one seems to know why. This movie was produced and written by Victor Adamson who's son would go on to make various drive-in classics like Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Horror of the Blood Monsters.

The movie was first planned as a serial, but after a couple of chapters was finished as a feature. Therefore, while the first half 'stars' Art Mix, he mysteriously vanishes in the second half.In his opening scene, the sheriff, Edmund Cobb, says, "I'll catch The Rawhide Killer in my own way!" Then, as if by magic, in the second half of the movie he becomes the hero, defeats the villain (who turns out be his long lost brother) and kisses and wins Art Mix's girl (if she's still the same one from the first half of the movie)! This movie would get the Ed Wood Jr. absurdity award (the "Woodie"!) if it weren't so boring. Woods' 'best' films, 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1959) and 'Glen or Glenda' (1953) were anything but boring! This one is shot mostly outdoors with almost nothing but chase after chase after chase, retaining one actual chapter ending cliff hanger (the clichéd knocked out in the back of a horse drawn wagon going over a cliff trick) and apparently another (the dynamited cliff avalanche trick) which is cut up, as is this film.It features what was an early clichéd premise: a lone family traveling west in a covered wagon is ambushed, the parents killed, and the two young boys separated. The best of this type, in the thirties, was 'Calvacade of the West' (1936) starring Hoot Gibson and Rex Lease as the two brothers. In 'The Rawhide Terror,' however, both sons bear identifying marks on their arms so they can recognize each other "if separated." After renegades kill his parents, the older brother wanders off crazed, becoming the Rawhide Killer who seeks vengeance as an adult on the entire gang who killed his mother and father. In the final scene, Edmund Cobb discovers the mark on the Rawhide Killer as he defeats him, and we discover that Cobb is the younger son, not Art Mix.Edmund Cobb, veteran of over 625 TV shows, movies and serials -- he was the mine owner and an evil council member in 'Zorro's Fighting Legion' (1939) -- appeared mostly in small, bit parts as a sheriff, guard, henchman or uncredited walk on. The only interesting part of 'The Rawhide Terror' is in getting to see this perennial heavy become the action hero and romantic lead (probably his only 'starring' role!). Otherwise, it's a confusing, jumbled mess. So it gets a two and a half.