Gunfights and electric guitars in the Old West? You bet! Zachariah gets a mail order gun, practices a little, and kills a man in the local saloon. He and his friend Matthew set out to become gunfighters, joining with the Crackers, a rock band who are also (pitifully inept) stage robbers. Having quickly outgrown that gang, Zachariah and Matthew set out to become bigtime gunslingers. Before long, they part company and a rivalry grows between them.


After receiving a mail order gun (the time is the 1870s) Rubinstein and his pal, Johnson, (later of TV's "Miami Vice") get themselves in trouble and kill a man. They join up with Country Joe and the Fish, playing a group of traveling musicians who also indulge in bank robbery. Rubinstein decides he wants to be the fastest gun in the West, so he takes on outlaw king Jones, an infamous black man. But after seeing Jones and his gang Rubinstein changes his mind. Johnson hitches up with Jones' gang while Rubinstein heads out on his own, taking up with a lonely old man (Challee). Later he heads out again and meets Quinn, taking her to bed. He realizes the city is not for him and returns to Challee. The old man dies but not before convincing the kid that violence is not the way to go in this world. Johnson, having killed Jones, comes gunning for Rubinstein but quickly sees that peace is the only way to exist; the two friends are once again united. Billed as the first "electric western" for it's abundance of rock tunes, ZACHARIAH is ridiculous without being funny. The rock format simply doesn't fit a western, and the story itself is a sledgehammer morality play. The direction doesn't do much with the material, trying for myth and falling short of the goal. The script was by Austin, Bergman, Ossman, and Procter, the four zanies behind the Firesign Theater. One look at the finished film and they disowned the work