Offbeat Spaghetti Western with a good cast with the first two in spades , Lou Castel and Mark Damon , as well as a particular role for Pier Paolo Pasolini as Mexican guerrillero . The son of a Mexican rebel (Lou Castel) is adopted by a family headed by a preacher who travels in a wagon captioning ¨In God we trust¨ along with his wife , son and daughter but when his step-sister runs away , Requiescant sets out in rescue . Requiescant is very close to his stepsister Princy (Barbara Frey) who has fled to work as a saloon girl . One time grown-up Requiescant , searching for his adopted sister , comes upon a little town that is under the thumb of a powerful owner . Requiescant soon finders her in the employment of George Bellow Ferguson (Mark Damon) , an evil landowner who manipulates the young man for his own amusement . When his history is heritage is discovered it is revealed Ferguson was the man who ordered the death of the man's family all for the control over the land that belonged to them . Meanwhile , Requiescant aids the unappreciated although terrorized town in the process and suddenly finds his sister . Requiescant executes a single-handedly revenge , as he shoots , ravages and murders each person involved in his father's killing . He is relentless in his vendetta , deadly in his violence . Requiescant is submitted a tempestuous trap by Fergurson and is caught and he faces the vicious bandits .
It's an exciting but slow-moving western with breathtaking showdown between the protagonist Lou Castel against the heartless Mark Damon and his hoodlums , including a fine set on the Aztec temple . This ¨Requiescant¨ playing out the Spaghetti Western formula like clockwork , yet retains a moral compass often lacking in its more famous brethren . The film packs violence , gun-play, explosion , high body-count and rare happenings . This picture is defined by its heightened visual style , its brutality , and its amorality well represented on the Ferguson/Mark Damon character . Requiescant may not be the strongest story for a Western and it does tend to fluff over a few scenes . Lou Castel takes the lead role in Requiescant , Castel as merciless hero is mediocre , he plays a young man raised to be a pacifist by a travelling preacher who discovered him as a baby after a massacre of his family . Lou shoots , hits , runs and kills but also receives violent knocks , punches, kicks and wounds . In the film premiere attained little success , nowadays is best valued and I think it turns out to be a very strange Spaghetti Western . Mark Damon is terrific as a cruelly baddie role , he plays a deranged former Confederate officer who is stealing land from the Mexican people with phony land grants , he bears a hysterical and mocking aspect , an offbeat role who dresses , garments and make-up in ¨Dracula-alike¨ . Screenplay is written in leftist feeling , that's why it is included peculiar actors as Pier Paolo Pasolini and two players of his factory : Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli .
Poor production design but including an impressive Aztec temple creating an excellent scenario in which takes a place a massacre at the beginning and the ending . The musician Riz Ortalani , composes a passable soundtrack in Morricone style ; it's full of guttural sounds, and a haunting musical leitmotif. Striking , vibrant and crisp cinematography by Sandro Mancori . Interior filmed at Elios Studios Rome and outdoor sequences filmed at Italian landscapes , from El Lacio , Rome .
Carlo Lizzani's direction is regularly crafted , here he's more thought-provoking and broody and more inclined toward violence , because he's a expert on serious cinema . Although he filmed another S.W. titled -under a pseudonym named Beaver- . Lizzani was member of the P.C.I. (Communist Party) whose leftist wing tending is well shown in his flicks . He directed good films as ¨Last days of Mussolini¨, ¨Bandits in Milan¨, co-directed ¨Dirty game¨, ¨The Verona trial¨, ¨chronicle of poor lovers¨ and today he goes on directing movies until his recent death at 91 . Rating : 6 , acceptable and passable . The picture will appeal to Spaghetti Western fans.
