Los Angeles screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both.
Director:
Rod Lurie
Stars:
James Marsden,
Kate Bosworth,
Alexander Skarsgård
An American barroom pianist and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.
Director:
John Schlesinger
Stars:
Dustin Hoffman,
Laurence Olivier,
Roy Scheider
Upon moving to Britain to get away from American violence, astrophysicist David Sumner and his wife Amy are bullied and taken advantage of by the locals hired to do construction. When David finally takes a stand it escalates quickly into a bloody battle as the locals assault his house.Written by
Andrew Hyatt <dres@uiuc.edu>
Sam Peckinpah attempted to interest playwright Harold Pinter in working on it before production began, but Pinter, loathing the subject matter, refused. See more »
Goofs
In the scene where David is going to confront the villagers about the cat, he lets in 4 men, but when they gather in the living room, there are only three villagers. See more »
Quotes
Riddaway:
I didn't reckon on nobody getting killed, Norman.
Norman Scutt:
Yeah, well, that's too bad. We're all in it now. Accessories, we are.
Charlie Venner:
That's the law.
See more »
Alternate Versions
The Criterion Collection, a privately-owned New York City video distribution house, acquired the rights from MGM to release a special edition double-DVD set of the film in 2003, which featured a new high-definition transfer (performed by Criterion) of the uncut version, and included unique extras such as a scholarly audio commentary, the documentary _Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron (1992) (TV)_ a then newly recorded interview with Susan George and correspondence from Sam Peckinpah to some of the film's critics. This Criterion edition was limited to a one-year print run and the packaging carried a "Limited Edition" sticker,the only one of Criterion's releases to do so. In 2004, the Criterion edition went out-of-print and MGM acquired the Criterion transfer and released it to DVD without the extras. See more »
Peckinpah's post- 'Wild Bunch' movies were a mixed bag. Frequently battling studios, censors and/or his own demons, some are genuine classics ('..Alfredo Garcia'), some are entertaining potboilers ('The Getaway'), and some like 'Straw Dogs' are in between. I could never argue that this movie is his best work, but it is far from his worst, and whatever you can say about his movies, they are ALWAYS interesting.
'Straw Dogs' is the closest he came to making a genre horror/thriller movie. If you enjoy 'Rio Bravo'-inspired siege movies such as Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' or Carpenter's 'Assault On Precinct 13', check this one out. But it is more than "just" a thriller - it features strong character development, and morally ambiguous situations among the tense build up to the explosive climax.
In these P.C. times 'Straw Dogs' offers no simple answers, but plenty of issues for discussion, and it is to be commended for that. "Right" or "wrong"? YOU decide!
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Peckinpah's post- 'Wild Bunch' movies were a mixed bag. Frequently battling studios, censors and/or his own demons, some are genuine classics ('..Alfredo Garcia'), some are entertaining potboilers ('The Getaway'), and some like 'Straw Dogs' are in between. I could never argue that this movie is his best work, but it is far from his worst, and whatever you can say about his movies, they are ALWAYS interesting.
'Straw Dogs' is the closest he came to making a genre horror/thriller movie. If you enjoy 'Rio Bravo'-inspired siege movies such as Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' or Carpenter's 'Assault On Precinct 13', check this one out. But it is more than "just" a thriller - it features strong character development, and morally ambiguous situations among the tense build up to the explosive climax.
In these P.C. times 'Straw Dogs' offers no simple answers, but plenty of issues for discussion, and it is to be commended for that. "Right" or "wrong"? YOU decide!