How sad is this?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Massacre Mafia Style (1978) ** (out of 4)Duke Mitchell's middle finger to THE GODFATHER has him playing a mafia guy who goes to America to get in on all the action but soon realizes that things have changed since his father was running the business. However, he realizes way too late and before he does so there's a bloody gang war. MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE has become a cult classic over the years and it's very easy to see why. This film has so many awful moments but that is what makes the film so special and so darn funny at times. The movie opens up with a couple mafia guys walking through a packed office and just blasting people away. What makes this rather long sequence so funny is that people just stand there pretty much posing and waiting to be shot. There's a part where four or five men are just lined up and the mafia guys go through them one at a time. Umm...ever think of running? This entire sequence is without question one of the funniest moments you're ever going to witness in a film that isn't a comedy. There are other hilarious moments scattered throughout the film but for the most part nothing comes close to being as funny. With that said, the entire message that Mitchell is trying to give off is rather ridiculous and especially towards the end when he goes on a "sad" rant to his father about how the times have changed. Hey, we at least get to hear Mitchell sound off about dirty hippies and their pot. The performances are all pretty bad and that includes Mitchell but you've still got to love his work because he's trying so hard. Here recently a lot of movies are purposely made bad so that they can try and gain some cult attention. I think the key to great cult movies like this, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and even THE ROOM is that the filmmakers really did try to do something "serious" but it just didn't work. There's obviously love on the screen but none of it works. From the laughable dialogue to the questionable screenplay to the wild violence, nothing here works except for those who love bad movies.

In essence way WAY better than The Godfather.With such priceless one liners as "If I could get him on my side, we would be a small army of guts, balls, and trust", what more do you really need to know? It took me a long time to track this film down, but boy oh boy was the end result worth it. This film is so bananas I really don't know where to begin. Its chock full of low rent mafia types with pointy collared shirts and polyester slacks, no nonsense tough guys who aren't afraid to use a gun, and so much wooden acting you might have a hard time keeping a straight face the first time through. The all around best part about this cinematic journey would have to be the fact that you can second guess every even in the movie right before it happens. Enjoy!

A Sicilian mob hit-man winds up in Hollywood, shooting pimps, hookers, rivals, and lackeys in one of the most deliriously gonzo grindhouse epics of the 1970s. Much time is spent on dinner conversation, wherein gut-busting hilarious dialog is delivered with little motivation(one memorably clamarous censure involving an old lady's hands is a howler of awkwardly earnest sentiment). Add to that a heaping helping of very nasty gun violence, and you've got yourself one totally screwball, and, despite itself, extremely entertaining schlock film(with a few genuinely poignant moments).Spectacularly awful in the all best ways, and presented with out-and-out seriousness, this sacrosanct spectacle is well worth a hunt...capice? 7/10

This may well be the worst film ever made. Not worst in the sense of so-bad-it's-good...it's more like the least entertaining, most drawn out bore ever put to film. It may be 80 minutes, but believe me, it will feel like an eternity. I first learned about this catastrophe when I was researching one of my favorite films ever, "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (1952). As you may or may not know, Duke Mitchell, aka Dominico Miceli, was one half of the mercifully forgotten "comedy" team of Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. This team was a shameless and unabashed imitation of Dean Martin (D.M., get it?) and Jerry Lewis, a comedy team that was very successful in 1952. Nothing I say here can impress upon you how deliberate and transparent the ripoff was. You'll just have to take my word for it if you've never seen it. In the highlight (cough) of Brooklyn Gorilla, Duke Mitchell (who, like in the Executioner, plays himself) is turned into a singing gorilla. I hope I have not left the impression that Brooklyn Gorilla isn't entertaining, it is outright hilarious. So, when I heard about a film which starred (and was directed by) that titular Gorilla of days gone by, and which was obviously made to cash in on the success of "The Godfather" (1972), I believed that I was in for a really hilarious evening when I finally located "The Executioner." Boy, did I ever get a wrong number. This film is stale, stale, stale, made up almost entirely of LONG, boring conversations about how tough Duke has had it, punctuated every now and then by fake and unconvincing violence. I guess it is a lot cheaper to have Duke drone on about his life experiences than to actually, I don't know, film them. One major liability of the film is Duke Mitchell's acting. Apparently, this was his first job in the movies in 17 years, and his screen presence (which was admittedly in existence in 1952) has altogether disappeared. There was not one instant he was on screen that I didn't believe he was reciting a script. If Mitchell wasn't credited on the imdb with the screenplay, I would have guessed that he was reading them for the first time from a big cue card somewhere off camera. Aside from the film's technical ineptitude, the story is riddled with cavernous plot holes. To give just one example, Duke has to get to the top by eliminating the "number one" Mafia leader. So he and one assistant abduct the guy from church. Are the Mafia leader's guards vampires, or is there some more plausible reason they would not follow him into church?In short, this is an extremely dull film that is no fun at all. If you are looking for a laugh, or a good grade-z movie, LOOK ELSEWHERE! You have been warned.