A film whose title I would translate “Fort Doomed” may be mistakenly Western. However, there is not so much a cowboy movie as a thriller in the entourage of the Wild West. There are no horse chases, mass fights in the saloon, tense duels and much more. We have a kind of detective thriller with a slasher. It all begins with a group of girls representing the oldest profession, who were squeezed by competition in the big city, so they went to distant distances. On the road, a timid young photographer came, looking at the youngest, who had not yet mastered the craft of an older sister, leading the procession in revealing outfits. The guy needs interesting pictures of nature for the future photo project, fellow travelers - a new place of work, so everyone is heading for Fort Doomed. They do not yet have time to reach a remote settlement with a high palisade, and the viewer already understands that a mysterious killer operates on this territory, whose tricks the locals mistakenly blame on the Indians wandering in the forest.
The director initially well withstands the plot intrigue, trying to confuse various false moves or intentional accents in the right places for the appearance of unnecessary suspicion. The thriller about the maniac is complemented by a script of characters, which is quite pleasing for the production of category B, where you usually should not expect this. The eldest of the girls is performed by the “Queen of the Scream” Debbie Rochon, whose brisk heroine is used to taking care of herself, not hoping for anyone’s help, not experiencing any illusions, along the way not giving offense to her companions. She also wants to make a decent life for her naive sister, as if compensating for everything that she never had and will not have. And the party with a young photographer is not the best for her gullible “jewel”. Billy Drago plays a strange undertaker from a fort, who looks at people with an appreciative look, as if those are his fixed clients. The actor has played a lot of all sorts of negative types in action projects, so he knows his work well. There will be a doctor, a distrustful sheriff, various other residents who help to play a small settlement, where guests who have begun to establish acquaintances and arrange business will arrive. Once again, it is necessary to remember about the small budget, predominant half-amateurs in the frame, simple dialogues and the inevitable blunders that follow, which makes everything at a fairly low level of independent cinema intended for home video or TV channels. The mystery with the true identity of the murderer and his motives tries to intrigue the first third of the timekeeping, soon turning into a stretched secret of Polyshinel, flavored with a colorful background of forest landscapes, wood buildings, the entourage of old-fashioned clothes, which brightens up the monotony of the slasher ... And after the viewer understands that he should generally forget everything that was before, because the director himself clearly discarded it as unnecessary, turning into an action movie genre! And, yes, this is no joke.
Still, J. Christian Ingvordsen, to whom the militant was always closer, remembering a number of his previous works, could not resist, got bored and frankly struck to play war, throwing away any thriller, maniac, minor detective. He put on his hat, fastened the sheriff's badge and rushed to play cowboys, heroically shooting right and left, becoming the main character! He played fun and called others, giving each a revolver, so that the scenery of the Western did not stand idle. It is unknown where the entire crowd of Confederate soldiers escaped from, secret agents of the American president working undercover, the secret production of intoxicating drugs, endless peep-puff, the explanations of the noisy events that began - the grand piano in the bushes is truly impressive with the absurdity played out, which is deliberately not to be invented and logically not specifically explained. In such cases, you need to immediately turn off or, as in the anecdote, try to relax and have fun. Of course, pleasure is doubtful, strictly on the amateur, when everything is so bad that even something is good, because it is ridiculous. There are many absurdities, like the clapping of shots, the collective game of cowboys undisguisedly gives infantile fun to adults, new plot twists are clearly invented on the move, where you already forget all sorts of blunders, watching something like the fantasy of a small child who composed cowboy absurdity. Stupidly terrible, but in some places it is funny from stupidity. By the way, perhaps this turn of events is correct in something, because the author tried to make a thriller, the detective squeezed out of himself, he leaned into a dull slasher, but not on the shoulder of all this, and stupid militants are familiar, well-known, which he has been shooting since the late eighties. So he waved his hand and made a movie in his repertoire. Even in the final credits inserted failed takes, showing how unserious atmosphere reigned on the set, when the actors and then sneered, going to laugh, uttering their awkward dialogue, realizing all the absurdity. And if they were giggling there, then the viewer should not approach such a stupid film in full seriousness.
4 out of 10