Color, 1981, 91 mins. Directed by Ferdinando Baldi
Starring Tony Anthony, Victoria Abril, Gene Quintano, Richardo Palacios / Written by Lloyd Battista & Esteban Cuenca Sevilla / Produced by Tony Anthony / Cinematography by Fernando Arribas / Music by Carlo Savina
Format: DVD - Rhino (MSRP $19.95)
Letterboxed (2.35:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
Completely undistinguished in terms of filmmaking or plotting, Comin' at Ya! does manage to feature some of the weirdest 3-D effects of all time. During the opening credits alone, beans spill all over the camera, bullets fire at the audience, and hands reach out for the viewer's face. Not enough? How about guys falling downstairs (in slooooow motion), spinning fiery pinwheels (for the five minute recap at the end), bats, spiders, scurrying rats, flaming arrows (the best part), and even a baby's bare bottom! Some of the Leone-style scope photography looks nice, too, and Carlo Savina contributes a spare, elegiac score that probably deserved a better film. Also, fans of Spanish starlet Abril (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels) will be interested in seeing one of her earliest roles before she became a European celebrity.
Unfortunately, though nicely letterboxed (though maybe zoomed in a bit too much considering the tight framing of the opening Filmways logo), the Rhino DVD can't replicate the polarized (gray lenses) 3-D experience from the theatrical prints. Instead, viewers get a standard red/blue presentation, which distorts much of the color photography and causes some unfortunate blurring and loss of detail in the process. The print quality itself is satisfying, however, and the 3-D effects manage to survive intact. Considering the circumstances, though, it would have been preferable to have a standard color, 2-D variant for people who might actually want to see what the film really looked like. Incidentally, the glasses enclosed with this DVD were folded backwards; the red lens should be over the right eye. Also includes the corny, amusing U.S. trailer, which features no footage from the actual film but instead offers a "live" demonstration of how 3-D actually works... sort of!
For anyone who ever wondered how that mini-trend of 3-D movies in the early '80s got started, here's the answer. Before Jaws 3-D, before Friday the 13th Part 3-D, there was Comin' at Ya!, a spaghetti western shot for about ten cents that wound up making a bundle at the box office. In fact, its star, the bland Tony Anthony, even made a follow up Raiders of the Lost Ark 3-D ripoff, Treasure of the Four Crowns. Kitschy, silly, and often just simply strange, Comin' at Ya! simply isn't very good, but for those nostalgic or curious souls who haven't been able to see it this in the years since its theatrical run, Rhino's DVD offers a fair approximation of this unique experience.
Honorable gunslinger H.H. Hart (Anthony) is interrupted during his wedding to the lovely Abilene (Victoria Abril) by a pair of grotesque, lecherous brothers, Pike (Gene Quintano) and Polk (Richardo Palacios). The villains steal his bride and even cart off a few other women from town, then dump the ladies in the desert. Hart goes in hot pursuit, engaging in numerous fisticuffs and shootouts along the way.
