Gallow Walkers: D+

Did you See Blade and think that it would have been vastly improved had the mythology been tweaked to include the Wild West and the special effects had been severely downgraded? Well then you would fucking love Gallow Walkers!

Wesley Snipes is back from his forgot-to-pay-his-taxes “vacation” as Aman, not Blade. Look how Bladey he is, though!

Blade is the son of a mortal woman and a vampire, determined to hunt the undead, whom he hates, because they killed his mother. Aman is the son of a mortal woman and a demon, determined to hunt a band of ever-resurrecting outlaws, whom he hates, because they killed his sister.

Blade was raised by a biologist vampire slayer in a filthy auto body shop. Aman was raised by a shaman demon hater in a filthy slaughter house.

Blade uses small firearms, a sword, and projectile weapons to murder vampires. Aman uses small firearms, a whip, and projectile weapons to murder demon outlaws. Both of them have uncanny precision too!

Aman doesn’t fight Triple H with fangs like Blade did, he fights Diamond Dallas Page who wears a metal bucket on his head.

The one-liners, Snipes voice-overs, and ridiculous hair will trigger Blade nostalgia.

The borrowing from other movies does not end there. Aside from bucket head DDP, the antagonists include a dude with no skin who must purloin it from his victims ala Hellraiser, a female outlaw who looks like Daryl Hannah from Blade Runner, some fucking goon who looks like Bib Fortuna from Return of the Jedi, an omniscient demon who sounds like Unicron from the Transformers animated movie, and a billion expendable Gallow Walker undead outlaws who vary in sophistication from stumbling zombie to suave megalomaniac kingpin.

Exposition overload! Entire characters exist only as plot devices to prompt Snipes to tell his life story. The flashbacks are constant. Not from all that acid I did over the span of the last decade, I mean the flashbacks of Aman’s stupid fucking origin story that is basically the same as Blade’s. I’m not talking about the chemicals that will be in my spinal cord for the rest of my life.

The spaghetti western nod is there, and for the effort, they get credit. The action/gore is minimal and computer generated. Almost all of the kills are from gunshots that blast the victim off screen. The music is exactly what you would expect in a cheap western.

Nothing special to see hear, worth a few chuckles and interesting enough to play the whole way through.