Grade: A
Synopsis: After moving to his wife’s small English village, an American mathematician (Dustin Hoffman) has trouble with some of the locals.
Straw Dogs is a powerful film. Director Sam Peckinpah explores the nature of violence in a brutally honest manner that –while provocative—is never exploitive unlike, say, The Last House on the Left (1972), which also deals with the effects of violence on the average person.
This is a movie made by a tormented man. Peckinpah wrestles with his demons in a profoundly elegant manner, exploring not only the nature of man, but also the inequality of the sexes over the course of the story.
Granted Straw Dogs is, at its heart, a horror movie. In the finale, the villagers could have just as easily been zombies, or vampires, or any other kind of creature, but it’s their very human and believable nature that makes them so much scarier than any supernatural force.
Bottom Line: A movie that stays with you long after the credits roll. Recommended.
