Straw Dogs
STRAW DOGS (18)
D: Sam Peckinpah
Talent Associates/Amerbroco (Daniel
Melnick)
UK 1971
118 mins
Thriller
W: David Zelag Goodman & Sam
Peckinpah [based on the novel "The Siege Of Trencher's Farm" by Gordon M. Williams]
DP: John Coquillon
Ed: Paul Davies, Tony Lawson & Roger
Spottiswoode
Mus: Jerry Fielding
Dustin Hoffman (David Sumner), Susan George (Amy
Sumner), Peter Vaughan (Tom Hedden), T.P. McKenna (Maj. John Scott), Del Henney (Charlie Venner)
Some films aren't intended to entertain, some are
meant to scar. Perhaps this is why Sam Peckinpah's cult classic wasn't quite appreciated by critics when it was originally released in 1971.
A docile American university professor and his British
wife move to a quaint cottage in the remote English countryside where they are repeatedly taunted by a group of feral locals, to the point where the American's pacifistic nature explodes
into a violent rage.
It cannot be denied that Straw Dogs is a difficult
film to watch and not particularly rewarding for doing so, but it's a jarring story which will remain embedded in your memory forever.
An inferior Hollywood remake was released in
2011.
8/10
