DVDanger: Kill or Be Killed

Blood on the landscape: The Barbee gang (Paul McCarthy-Boyington, Greg Kelly, Larry Grant Harbin, and Justin Meeks) face a deadly future in Texas Western Kill or Be Killed. (Photo by Matt Dayton)

The Western is back. The most American of cinematic art forms (except for when the Italians took it and did it crazier), adventures on the dusty plains have re-emerged as a proving ground for underdog filmmakers. Now Texas is getting back in the game with Kill or Be Killed.

The latest from Justin Meeks and Duane Graves is a departure from their reputation to date as horror guys: However, they remain solidly home-state boys. The Wild Man of the Navidad was a rare cinematic outing for the Lone Star State’s version of the Sasquatch, while San Antonio-set Bone Boys was a Kim Henkel-endorsed kin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. For Kill or Be Killed (which was shot under the more poetic title Red on Yella, Kill a Fella), the duo tell a highly fictionalized version of the tale of Sam Bass, notorious Texas outlaw and train robber gunned down just up the road from Austin in Round Rock.

Actually, Kill or Be Killed is more lightly inspired by Bass’ exploits than at any level a retelling. Here he is reinvented as Claude “Sweet Tooth” Barbee (Meeks pulling treble duty, on top of his co-writer/co-director credits), chief of a rough-and-tumble band of renegades wreaking havoc across late 19th century Texas. They fight, they rob, they murder, they cheat, and they do it with an amazing sense of period accuracy that gives it a veracity rarely seen in Westerns.

In that opening act, Kill or Be Killed feels right, feels authentic – almost to its detriment. Buried throat-deep in patois and dialect, it’s borderline impenetrable, forcing the audience to delve deep into its conventions while still trying to keep up with the characters. While it's the kind of effort more filmmakers should undertake, it's as distracting as the odd splash of digital blood or ill-considered ripple of CG fire.

It’s in the second act that it finds its gusto. After a series of particularly heinous crimes, and the crossing of paths with those far worse than Barbee's rough riders, their ranks start getting thinned by mysterious deaths, each marked by a strange yellow brand on their flesh. This is when the characters become more defined, their fates more impactful, and the final reveal the more disturbing. It helps that there is a real goal – the hunt for a lost stash of gold – to focus attention, and it binds the narrative tighter.

Meeks and Graves make nods to their horror roots, with cameos from TCM’s Edwin Neal and The Hills Have Eyes’ Michael Berryman. Yet what’s admirable, and a change of pace, is that this is a pure Western, much like Bone Tomahawk, The Hateful Eight, and the upcoming In a Valley of Violence (before you ask, that renaissance does not include The Revenant, which is a frontier adventure, or The Keeping Room, which is a Civil War drama, and so about as much a Western as Gone With the Wind.)

But this isn’t the Western John Wayne would recognize. This is much more the noir feel of bad people doing bad things for no good reason, and the best person is just the least worst. As time goes on, Barbee’s limited code of ethics is revealed, for what it’s worth. But that’s just how people are, especially in an environment where the rules of society seem derived from the mental meltdown of Wisconsin Death Trip.

Kill or Be Killed (RLJ Entertainment) is out on DVD now. For an interview with Meeks and Graves, read "A White-Knuckle Western," Feb. 26.

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