"Cut-Throats 9" is frequently named as the most violent euro-western ever made but, even though this is a righteous and well-deserved reputation, it shouldn't be the only reason why genre lovers have to see it! This film primarily tells an engaging story, which describes itself best as a variation on the 'survival of the strongest'-theme blend with Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", and makes excellent use of its depressing filming locations. The film opens quite atmospherically, with the introduction of seven tough and feared convicts that are being escorted from one prison to another. After a clumsy hold-up, they have to continue their journey on foot; chained to each other and guided by only one remaining prison guard and his gorgeous daughter. Ingenious plot-twists follow pretty soon and, even though it's no real spoiler, I prefer not to mention them here already, because they're well worth checking out yourself! Don't immediately assume that "Cut-Throats 9" is a non-stop series of bloodshed and gratuitous violence, though. The murders are indeed shown very graphically and the nature of this violence is truly mean-spirited, yet director Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent (nice name, by the way) never at one point loses his focus on the compelling storyline. This is one of those very rare flicks in which really none of the characters can count on your sympathy, since even the supposed 'good guys' are greedy and egocentric bastards. Admittedly, there are a couple of tedious moments to struggle yourself through and the acting often comes across as rather amateurish. The music, however, is great and the abrupt, nihilistic ending excellently fits the overall disturbing tone of the movie. There's few to no sleaze, but the extreme and downright sick violence widely makes up for this. Definitely recommended, IF your stomach can take it

Brutal, bleak and gory, this is an effective Spanish spaghetti western with no good guys at all. There is a hint at the start when we see the seven chain gang prisoners being led by the seeming good guy and his daughter, because counting up the procession, it is clear that the nine of the title includes them too. An engaging film, however desolate, but this is always going down all the way. There are one or two moments of respite but there are too many killings, a rape and hints of cannibalism, for this to be likely to have any happy ending. A rather good plot line, some excellent music, good photography in what looks like very difficult conditions in the mountains and yes, some really nasty killings.

I am going to start of by saying that yes- this film was indeed very gory- most especially the up-close disembowelment being the goriest scene in the film, in my opinion. And for 1972, I was highly impressed with the realism of the gore, and all of the other special effects for that matter. The gore is what this film advertised as it's main selling point, however when I saw this film I was quite pleasantly surprised by many of the other great features the film also contained.

I very much enjoyed the directing- from a shot perspective, the composition of scenes such as the flashback hanging scene looked really cool and sinister. And the unsettling reversed collapsing house in the hallucination sequence was, in my opinion, genius.

And not forgetting the story. It is quite a depressing and bleak story in which ultimately no one has what they want to happen. To me, most of the film seemed like nothing much was happening. So for the first part of the film, I was kind of looking for a story line as it got past the intro. That was until I realised that I was beginning to feel rather uneasy as the film progressed. It was slowly but surely building a dark tension that kept me watching with suspense. And I won't reveal it in detail, but I was impressed to an surprising amount with the twist in the end, which I did not expect at all. It did not only shock me, but also brought everything together that didn't make sense before in a nice and tidy way. From that perspective I loved it, but as I'm not a fan of bleak and depressing stories, it didn't enjoy me as much as it could have.

The acting is something I cannot fault either. Although it was an English dubbed version I watched, it did not distract me from the performances given.

But the main point I must say about this film is that it is very peculiar. It's a Spanish-made Western. But it's not just a Western- it's a Crime- Thriller- gore-fest that had a very Horror feel to it, thanks to the fabulously eerie directing of Marchent. Indeed a very strange selection of genres to put together, but it worked! Overall, I was quite surprised how it exceeded my expectations! Personally I am rating it 7.5/10- it's not a masterpiece, but it is definitely a very enjoyable film that that didn't bore me. The reason my star rating is 10/10 is because I feel it needs to be higher on the overall IMDb rating (yes I know that's not how I'm supposed to do it and that rating probably won't make any difference)!