source: Take Another Hard Ride

"Kid Vengeance" was originally released back in 1977. Anyway - As the story goes - Tom is a young man who witnesses the brutal murder of his parents and the kidnapping of his sister by a vicious gang lead by McCain. Tom sets out after the gang in hopes of avenging his parents and rescuing his sister from their clutches. Along the way, Tom partners up with Isaac a prospector and gunfighter who's after the gang for stealing his mine.

Released in 1977 and directed by Joseph Manduke, "Kid Vengeance" (retitled simply "Vengeance") is a Matzo Ball oater starring Leif Garrett as an adolescent who witnesses his mother's raping followed by his parent's murder at the hands of a bandit gang in the Southwest desert. He teams up with a miner (Jim Brown) to enact vengeance and get his sister back (Glynnis O'Connor). Lee Van Cleef plays the outlaw leader. This was shot before another Hebraic Western with Van Cleef and Garrett, 1976's "God's Gun," but released afterward. These turned out to be the last two Westerns for Van Cleef. "Kid Vengeance" is better than "God's Gun" simply because it's gritty realistic whereas the latter has an uneven semi-camp/parody tone. In any case, Garrett was about 14 during filming and O'Connor was 20-21 whereas Van Cleef looks like he wandered off the set of "Woodstock" with his headband, although they were no doubt used in the Old West. The plot may be hackneyed, but the cast is great. Unfortunately, the movie's strictly one-dimensional in tone and utterly desolate in location; and therefore a mite tedious. Still, it's worth checking out if you like the cast and 60s-70's Westerns. The film runs 90 minutes and was shot in Israel. GRADE: C+

I know nothing of Lief Garrett's modern day goings on, but I'll tell you this: he can sure pick a grim film to star in! Not only was he great in Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys), he's also good in this, as a kid out to get revenge on the low down scum who killed his parents! The leader of this gang? Lee Van Cleef, all bald and knife-brandishing. Garrett fairly works his way through the evil gang, using snakes, scorpions, nooses, rocks and arrows in what amounts to almost a slasher-like Western. I didn't even think he needed the help of Jim Brown, but when Big Jim starts throwing dynamite at everyone, you're kind of signing up a winner right there! Big Jim also brings along his band of brothers he's been fighting with, just to complicate things up a bit. This is your typical dark late-era Spaghetti Western, violent and pretty unrelenting, with a fairly high body count. Made in Isreal so I guess the term 'Spaghetti' might not be appropriate.

Young Leif Garrett watches helplessly while his parents are murdered and his sister taken by a savage band of grimy cutthroats led by Van Cleef, who looks like a hippie with full facial growth, earring, long hair, and headband (probably holding the hair extensions in place), and Robert Morley. (best remembered for waking up next to a horse head in The Godfather) Garrett tracks the bandits and begins to slay them one by one before teaming up with gold miner Jim Brown to finish them off. Not a spaghetti western, this was an Isreali production made in Isreal by Golan-Globus, who did a better job (Van Cleef too) with God's Gun. Most people agree that Lee Van Cleef's career in westerns ended with a whimper, but I thought it was okay. Too bad that in the following twelve years nobody got him back in the saddle with a six-shooter. It would have been great having seen Lee Van Cleef on a horse in the action packed eighties.

Seek this one out if you are looking for a different kind of Lee Van Cleef "spaghetti-type western". Definitely on a par with his lesser westerns like "Death Rides a Horse", but inferior to "The Big Gundown", this revenge story has quite a few unusual aspects. The surviving massacred family member is a young boy, who proves quite resourceful in his vendetta against Van Cleef and his gang. Lee is definitely not a sympathetic character, and his evil presence is perhaps only surpassed by "Angel Eyes" in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". The quality of the DVD is inferior, with the sound badly out of sync. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this unique "pseudo-spaghetti western". - MERK

KID VENGEANCE (2 outta 5 stars) Cheaply-made and poorly-directed piece of western fluff starring Lee Van Cleef as one of the most vile villains he's ever played. This was during his later years when he was getting a bit long in the tooth to believably play those nasty, tough guy parts... but he is still the most interesting thing in this movie. He leads a bunch of bandits who rape and kill the mom and dad of young Leif Garrett and then kidnap his sister. Leif goes after them with "vengeance" on his mind. He begins to pick off the bandits one by one, using some pretty unconventional means (bow and arrow, rocks, scorpions, the old snake-in-the-saddlebag trick). He eventually teams up with a gold prospector (Jim Brown) whose life savings have been stolen by these men as well. The film starts off looking like a bad TV-movie... but once the raping and killing starts it becomes obvious that this was no "Movie Of The Week". You might be interested enough to sit through it once but this is no classic by any means.

Leif Garrett was excellent in this entertaining western made in 1976, the year before he began recording music at Atlantic Records. Unfortunately Lee Van Cleef was looking too old and fat to play an outlaw convincingly.

source: Take Another Hard Ride

"Kid Vengeance" was originally released back in 1977. Anyway - As the story goes - Tom is a young man who witnesses the brutal murder of his parents and the kidnapping of his sister by a vicious gang lead by McCain. Tom sets out after the gang in hopes of avenging his parents and rescuing his sister from their clutches. Along the way, Tom partners up with Isaac a prospector and gunfighter who's after the gang for stealing his mine.