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Straw Dogs Movie Review

Straw Dogs is a 1971 psychological thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. It is another very bad, frustrating movie from the seventies.

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“I will not allow violence against this house“

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David marries Amy and relocates to the interiors of Cornwall, a place where Amy was raised. However, an unfortunate event changes the course of their lives. Wow, did I hate this film. I knew that I was in for seventies overly-indulgent violence and rape scenes, but I hadn’t expected that it would be this empty of an experience.

So, let’s discuss. Apparently, this movie was a hit back in 1971 and it did earn some strong reviews, but also some detractors, Roger Ebert one among them. I wholeheartedly agree with the negative assessments. Yes, the rape scenes as presented here were terrible and tasteless. The first one even ended in the woman enjoying the experience, which was simply a horribly misogynistic way to portray women and their traumatic rape experience.

I did like her PTSD from it, that was well depicted, but everything else was just horrendous, including the men. Yes, I would say that the movie is horribly misandrist as well. Great job, movie. You managed to be sexist toward both sexes, excellent job indeed! What am I talking about? Well, the entire idea of men in this movie is terribly dated and especially what their idea of being a real man is. The machismo and violence being equated made my stomach hurt and the fact that the protagonist himself has that journey toward a violent maniac and it’s portrayed to be a good thing for all men like himself. I couldn’t and I can’t.

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But this is my main issue – its emptiness. I wouldn’t mind all of this violence and disgusting rape scenes had the movie had any point, but it simply did not have anything to say about these issues as it’s hollow in any sort of psychological insight. Even worse, the points that it did raise are, well, the terrible messages aforementioned above.

The movie does have some excellent acting, I will give it that. Dustin Hoffman is fantastic in a terrible role that I couldn’t imagine him in at all, but he surprised me, so of course I have to give him praise for managing to kill it in a turn that went against typecasting. Susan George was also excellent and some of her scenes were so disturbing, but the actress did elevate them a bit with her very strong, emotional turn. Others were also believable as those horrible rapists.

Straw Dogs is also intense, I have to commend the movie for being such a visceral experience, even if I hated it. The darkness of the photography and the menacing score were also strong. However, the direction from Peckinpah is just bad and I definitely do not like this director after this film and the overrated ‘The Wild Bunch’.

The seventies were simply a horrible time for cinema, especially the US one. I am glad that I wasn’t alive during that period as this is the time where excessive violence on screen was equated with coolness somehow, which is all types of wrong in my opinion. This movie is actually one of the more problematic examples of that terrible approach to filmmaking.

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