Straw Dogs

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Alec B Too downbeat to be "fascist" (sorry Pauline) but it does still effectively make the audience extremely uncomfortable. This is why people feel the need to attack it. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/28/24 Full Review CaptainMaple This movie was absolutely awful, don't watch it unless you like watching paint dry for the first half, listen to shattering glass for the second half and occasional and motivation less shock scenes for seemingly no reason. In an Age where Death Wish and Seven Samurai also exist, this movie has no right to be as boring as it is for a "thriller" Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/24 Full Review Wayne K It might seem tame by today's standards, where violent revenge thrillers are a dime a dozen, but Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs remains just as shocking all these decades later, not because of the violence itself, but of its moral implications. Taking a meek, mild-mannered man and not an action hero or a raging brute and turning him into an instrument of brutality and vengeance lays bare the notion that all of us are capable of such horror, of such blood-thirsty retribution. There's a fairly slow and mundane build, but it makes the escalation of violence, which is significant, feel even more potent. The infamous rape scene is where the films moral quandaries really kick into overdrive, and help to prevent the film from feeling like a simple black and white, good verses evil tale. Peckinpah knew how to present violence in a way that made the audience uncomfortable, and he also realised that editing could enhance this effect. There's a lot of quick cuts, sometimes to close ups and sometimes to clips that are in slow motion. Its makes for a disorientating experience, and when it occurs during a violent episode, it makes it feel all the more disturbing. The end leaves you feeling not elated, but shaken and confused, unable to reconcile what you've just witnessed with what you expected the outcome to be. This is why the film works as well as it does. It's not a traditional narrative of good triumphing over evil, it's a morality tale about how that same evil is present in all of us and, whether we like it or not, we're all capable of the most heinous acts when we're pushed to our limits. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/09/23 Full Review Steve D I get that what it is trying to be but the film is just so unpleasant its characters so unsympathetic that only the last 20 min or so do anything other than disgust. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 03/20/23 Full Review william d I found the excessive close ups and jump cut edits to be pretty distracting. However, the now infamous ending makes it worth watching (although it's fairly tame by today's standards). Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Leaburn This film was average 🤏 Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Straw Dogs

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