Death Rides a Horse: A Night Mare

Here we see one of the rare scenes during which I recommend
you are not in the kitchen preparing popcorn.

Fifteen years ago when Bill Meceita was a child, bandits raped and murdered his family before his eyes while he watched the entire scene. Young Bill would have needed 300 episodes of Barney and 1500 volts of shock therapy before he was even close to well-balanced after undergoing such trauma. But with the advent of television about 100 years away and the wild west short on mental health professionals, he'll have to make due with vengeance, courtesy of hot lead.

No, we would not like some girl scout cookies... oh wait you
mean you guys are here to kill us? You could have fooled me in those
outfits.

The murderers wore bandannas which concealed their faces. However young Bill, using his photographic memory, took note of their highly unique yet bizarre costume jewelry, tattoos, and other bizarre paraphernalia. 


Fifteen years older and fifteen times madder, Bill wiles his time away at the firing range plugging bottles and ingeniously fashioned targets which fashioned during his free time, when he was not shooting things. Now he is ready to inflict some serious damage on the bad guys. And afterwards maybe he can get a life.

Bill takes note of a distinctive pendant worn by one of the
murderers, who shops at the dollar store.

Bill is a fittingly terse main character. His terse lines make the Terminator seem as bombastic as Jesse Jackson. As he approaches his goal of becoming a mass murderer, Bill feels a sense of elation. But then he runs into trouble. 


Trouble has the name of Ryan.

Ryan is a recently freed convict with revenge on his agenda. He was double crossed by the same thugs who wiped out Bill’s family. Like me you probably wonder why such a nice group of upstanding fellas would do something like that? Hmm, you think you know people sometimes.

No thanks, I would not like some salt before I bake
in the hot sun, thinks Bill. Please pass the water.

When they framed Ryan, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Both men are motivated by revenge but Ryan’s desire is money, not blood; and blackmail and a pistol are his tools of the trade. A dead body can’t buy too much horse feed.

The scenes of violence are sprinkled liberally throughout the movie. Before each major gunfight, there are a handful of lesser bad guys to kill. It is reminiscent of the relatively weak opponents a player must destroy in video game before the more challenging adversary, the boss. If I have to spell it out for you, the plot was stolen from Super Mario Bros. 

Ryan is glad he saved Bill after Bill saved him and kept the
plot's pattern consistent.

You don’t have to wait fifteen minutes before Bill executes another of his arch enemies. It’s enough time to take a bathroom break, order a pizza, and nuke another bowl of popcorn. This is one of the most masterful yet pragmatic plots ever conceived. The orgies of violence are intense yet brief. Sufferers of acute ADD can go to the kitchen for snack and arrive back in their easy-chair time for the next wave of killing – all without having to hit the pause button.

There is a certain pattern in the plot of this film, which was not clearly evident upon the first viewing. However, after a few dozen viewings and days spent poring over a white board, I excitedly hit the pause button. The pattern in the plot was suddenly revealed as clear as day. I believe that, at that moment, I felt the way Columbus felt when he saw land. This is pattern which I discovered: First Ryan saves Bill. Then Bill saves Ryan. Then Ryan saves Bill. Then Bill saves Ryan.  See, it repeats. But there is a surprise twist ending. Before what we believed was the first time Ryan saved Bill – Ryan saved Bill!

I hope "Death Rides a Horse" provides you as much amusement as it did for me. Even if you do not laugh along with it at least you can laugh at it.

RATING: PAIR OF ACES