The Shooting with Warren Oates and Jack Nicholson. 1966 with a budget of $78,000. Early in Nicholson's career but Oates had experience albeit in tv shows. It was pretty bad.

You haven’t seen Sharktopus vs Whalewolf yet

Bless your hearts. You two are precious.

Was it worse than:
China 9, Liberty 37.
Another Oates oater!

The Shooting is an example of what has become classified as an Acid Western, which though coming into existence roughly at the same time as the Revisionist Western, differs from that genre by being "art films" which are open to interpretation as to meaning, plot and conclusion.

Revisionist Westerns are played straight and differ from traditional Westerns by rejecting most of the themes embodied in the Western genre; clearly-drawn lines of good versus bad, honor, forthright and ethical behavior and individualism, etc.

The Acid Western moves even farther away from the traditional themes and these films are the kinds of things the art house crowd love to discuss and interpret.

The ending of The Shooting is made especially puzzling by the decision of financier Roger Corman to edit out an important part of the film's exposition.

The Shooting was shot back-to-back with Ride in the Whirlwind, yet another example of the Acid Western. Both films were financed by Corman and produced by Jack Nicholson and Monte Hellman, and both films were directed by Hellman and starred Nicholson.

Ride in the Whirlwind was written by Nicholson, and The Shooting was written by Carole Eastman under a pseudonym. Eastman, for all I can gather, was a dyed-in-the-wool man-hater, and this comes through in the cruel tone of The Shooting.

There is much which has been written about both of these films and anyone who is interested should seek out that commentary.

I did not understand The Shooting the first few times I saw it. One must be familiar with those involved in its production, and it is especially important to learn about the part of the script which was edited out of the final film.

Most viewers won't care enough to do the research and anyone who watches the film expecting a traditional Western will dismiss it as junk and this is understandable. Undeniably, there is simply no more American film genre than the Western and the classic films are priceless examples of the art form and I take no exception to anyone who rejects the Revisionist and Acid forms of the genre. I love the classic Western as much as anyone.

For film buffs like me, though, much of the pleasure of movies comes in the knowing and understanding and The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are rewarding in ways not visible on the movie screen.

Regarding China 9, Liberty 37, this is also a Hellman-directed film with Warren Oates, but it was made a decade after the other two films, and it's an Italian/Spanish production- either a Spaghetti Western or Paella Western, depending upon how you look at it, and it, too, is far from the traditional Western genre.