The Quick and the Dead, a cult neo-western for the ages.

Sam Raimi introduced his trademark hyperkinetic visual style to the western genre with the underrated 1995 neo-western The Quick and the Dead.

Sharon Stone wowed at her best as The Lady, an enigmatic sniper who emerges from seclusion to seek revenge at a small-town shooting tournament.

Gene Hackman excelled as the twisted, charming maniac Herod, who lords it over the town with equal parts gusto and malevolence as they face off in a powder keg showdown.

Raimi plunges viewers into a whirlwind of bullets, swirling cameras and screaming gore with orchestral bravado.

Climactic rapid-fire duels exploded off-screen in hallucinatory hysteria.

Yet beneath the spectacle thrived a darkly playful meditation on the making of legends and the slipperiness of morality when you have a gun in your hand.

Nuance abounds amidst the chaos.

Stone radiated regal mystery and cobra lethality, an empowered femininity wrapped in practical buckskin. She remains the ultimate Lady.

If The Quick and the Dead went unnoticed in cinemas, it's worth revisiting for its deconstruction of the genre executed with relentless panache.