10 Most Violent Westerns Ever Made
5. El Topo (1971)
Known as being everything from a puppeteer, mime, psychoanalyst and draughtsman, it’s no surprise that director Alejandro Jodorowsky is also the director and leading actor in a film as acid-soaked and insane as this.
Manson-esque in his portrayal of gunslinger El Topo, Jodorowsky begins the film by travelling across the desert with his own son walking behind him with only a hat and shoes on - and it somehow gets weirder.
We follow El Topo through the desert on a spiralling quest to kill four gunmen, however on the way there’s monks, mutants, castration, sex and crucifixion, just to name a few things. The film is about as maddening and violent as it gets, but it's equally fun and hilarious. Like Sergio Leone but with no sense of morals, Jodorowsky has written a film with a bizarre dreamscape that acts as a metaphor for questioning religion and your own sense of spirituality. There’s a lot to get out of a film like El Topo, however you will be left clawing on to your own sanity.
El Topo is a surreal, grotesque, revolutionary and testing movie. It’s one of the craziest films you’ll ever see but it is so worth the time.