If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death is one of those rare movies that isn't technically very good, yet still remains thoroughly entertaining. The first official movie in the Sartana series, it establishes many of its titular character's famous tropes: his use of James Bond-esque gadgets, his only wearing black, and his practice of only killing people who deserve it. The film itself can be seen as a bastardization of Yojimbo in that Sartana finds himself in the middle of a rivalry between two competing gangs and invents ways to play them off against each other. Of course, by "playing them off against each other" I really mean that he gets them to kill each other. The film has such an absurdly high body count that they should have depopulated the main town three times over. There's a plot about some stolen gold, corrupt politicians, and a Mexican general...but it doesn't make much sense. The plot exists to shove as many flesh sacks in front of the camera so they can be mowed down. But in a strange way, it works. The film is definitely a guilty pleasure. It doesn't make any of the fatal mistakes that many other Spaghetti Westerns fall prey to like horrible cinematography, plodding pacing, and nearly incomprehensible plots. In a bizarre way, it has a certain charm to it. After all, it did inspire its own official series and a legion of unofficial knockoffs.
6/10
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