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5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Redskin Blues remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you're a weirdo like me who digs through old animation archives on a Sunday afternoon. If you're looking for a coherent story or even a basic sense of tone, you're going to hate this. It’s too chaotic to be relaxing and too dated to be ironic.
The whole thing starts off with the classic wagon-train-in-peril setup. We've seen this a million times before in movies like Western Yesterdays, but here it just feels... off. The pacing hits you like a brick.
One minute we're watching a standard struggle, and the next, the entire military industrial complex shows up. Tanks? In a western setting? It’s the kind of choice that makes you put your drink down and just stare at the screen for a second. It makes no sense.
The animation style is bouncy and frantic, which is fine, but it lacks the charm you find in something like Le Million. Everything feels like it's vibrating. I found myself focusing on the background trees, which seem to disappear and reappear between frames. A classic budget-saving trick, I guess.
There's a moment about halfway through where the logic just fully checks out of the building. The shift from a frontier survival story to an all-out modern military assault is so jarring it almost feels like two different movies glued together by a madman.
I caught myself thinking about Tempest Cody Turns the Tables while watching this, mainly because both films have this strange, jittery energy that keeps you on edge. Except here, it’s not particularly clever. It’s just loud.
It’s not a masterpiece. It’s barely a coherent thought. But there’s something undeniably weird about it that stuck with me long after the credits rolled. Maybe it’s just the sheer audacity of the premise. 🤷♂️
If you’ve seen Hash House Blues, you’ll recognize that specific, slightly frantic tone. But this one feels like it was drawn during an earthquake. I’m not saying don’t watch it, but maybe keep your expectations firmly in the basement. It’s a curiosity, nothing more.
