Cry Blood, Apache is a 1970 western film directed by Jack Starrett and assistant director Robert Tessier.
A party of five men discover gold in a small Apache camp. They murder everyone there except for one young woman, who they keep alive hoping she'll lead them to more gold. Only Pitcalin among the five men shows kindness to the prisoner. An Apache brave who was away from the camp discovers the massacre and buries the dead. Then he tracks the murderers and brings slow but steady vengeance upon them.
Tropes in Cry Blood, Apache include:
- Advertised Extra: Joel McCrea receives top billing, but only appears for about 10 minutes in the segments that bookend the main story.
- Animal Assassin: Vittorio kills Two-Card Charlie by tying him up and placing a sack containing a rattlesnake over his head.
- As the Good Book Says...: The Deacon is frequently quoting the Bible; usually as he inflicts violence upon someone.
- Determinator: When Vittorio finds his tribe has been slaughtered, nothing will stop him tracking down the men responsible and killing them.
- Doomed Hometown: Vittorio returns from a hunting trip to discover everyone in his tribe's camp has been massacred by the prospectors. This sparks his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Due to the Dead: When Vittorio returns to the camp and finds his entire tribe slaughtered, he buries all of them before he embarks on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- God Guise: The Deacon goes mad while roaming the desert looking for Billy's body. When Vittorio lassos him, the Deacon thinks that Vittorio is God arrived to save him and addresses him as such.
- Gold Fever: After discovering a small cache of nuggets in an Apache camp, the white men murder the tribe and abduct the sole surviving member and force her to guide them to where the gold came from.
- Gun Struggle: When Pitcalin catches Billy and the Deacon spying on Jemme bathing in the river, Billy attempts to grab his rifle off him and the two of them struggle over it.
- A Handful for an Eye: During their knife fight, Vittorio flings a handful of snow into Pitcalin's face.
- Hard Head: During the fight in the river, Billy gets slammed headfirst into a tree hard enough to snap the trunk. All that happens to him is that he is stunned for a while.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: When Billy is paralyzed by Vittorio's arrows, the others leave him behind in the desert. As they depart, Benjy hands him a pistol. After they are gone, Billy presses the barrel to his forehead, planning on committing suicide, but Vittorio catches up to him first.
- A Match Made in Stockholm: Apache woman Jemme is abducted by the gang who murdered her tribe, as they believe she can lead them to gold. Over the course of her ordeal she falls in love Pitcalin, the only one of her captors to treat her with kindness. He falls in love with her as well.
- Outdoor Bath Peeping: The Deacon wakes up Billy and drags him down to the river to spy on Jemme bathing.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Vittorio returns from a hunting trip to find his entire tribe has been slaughtered. He buries his family and then sets out to hunt down and kill the men responsible.
- The Savage Indian: The movie builds on the idea that the Apache were incredibly inventive when it comes to torture.
- Token Good Teammate: Pitcalin is the only decent human being among Benjy's gang. He is visibly disgusted by their atrocities, and it is implied he did not know them before he joined them for a trading mission to the Apaches. He seems to be there because he is the only one who can speak Spanish.
- Unwilling Suspension: Vittorio hangs Benjy upside down above a creek so he has to struggle to keep his head out of the water. As he tires, he will eventually drown.
- Would Hit a Girl: Most of Benjy's gang have no qualms about hitting the Apache women, and later murdering them. Even Token Good Teammate Pitcalin is willing to tackle Jemme to the ground when she tries to escape (although arguably he is doing this to save her life).
