IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (1971) ***

After a long career of making exploitation fare for southern drive-ins, director Ron (Monster and the Stripper) Ormond suffered not one, but two near-fatal experiences in airplanes.  He then turned over his life to Jesus and made a deal with the Lord to only make movies in His name.  While the drive-in lost one of its most unsung directors, the Christian religion gained one heck of a screwy cinematic shepherd. 

Ormond’s first film as a born-again filmmaker was If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do?  It’s a mix of “What If?” cinema verité and good old-fashioned fire and brimstone preaching.  It is based on the works of Reverend Estus Pirkle, who delivers a sermon about the dangers of Communism as well as the many sins and vices that populated the early ‘70s (and now). 

It’s funny because the things Pirkle is rallying against (riots, campus protests, society’s loosening moral fiber, etc.) are still happening today.  Because of that, I say it’s high time somebody remake this for modern audiences.  Then again, no one could’ve possibly captured the madcap insanity of Pirkle’s ranting like Ormond.

If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do? is a mix of Christian Scare film and Anti-Communist propaganda, and it’s just demented enough to transcend both genres.  The scenes of Communists spreading terror on ordinary God-fearing folks work the best and play out like a Sunday School filmstrip version of Red Dawn directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.  Soldiers march citizens to their mandated jobs and if they refuse, they are shot dead in the street.  Drunk soldiers also wander into homes and force themselves on innocent housewives. 

That’s nothing compared to what they do to the children.  Kids are herded up and told to renounce God and pray to Fidel Castro in exchange for candy.  When the kids are caught listening to underground sermons, they are tied up and have their eardrums punctured with bamboo so they “can’t hear the word of God”.   Children are also forced to string up their own father and drop him repeatedly into a bed of pitchforks. In the film’s most insane scene, a kid is told to spit on a picture of Jesus and when he refuses, he’s decapitated!

This movie has been on my radar for a while as one of my friends has been after me to see if for some time.  I’m glad I got to see it within the context of the rest of Ormond’s work.  Because of that I definitely have a better appreciation for it. 

Even at a scant 52 minutes, it all feels a bit overlong.  That’s due to the fact that the preaching scenes are well, overly preachy, but also because the stuff with a sinning teenage member of the congregation having second thoughts about her wicked ways during the sermon kind of bog things down.  Although the valleys are as plentiful as the peaks, If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do? nevertheless remains a fascinating look into Ormond’s mind.  I mean, you become a born-again Christian, and THIS is the movie you make?  

In short, this movie is proof there is a God, and he’s an exploitation fan.