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Straw Dogs

Straw Dogs (1971)

December. 29,1971
|
7.4
|
R
| Drama Thriller

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

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Unlimitedia
1971/12/29

Sick Product of a Sick System

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StyleSk8r
1971/12/30

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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Gurlyndrobb
1971/12/31

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

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Taha Avalos
1972/01/01

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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tstudstrup
1972/01/02

This is one of those movies that ticked me off so much that the fact that 0 stars and real swear words are not allowed here, infuriates me even more.David Sumner a spineless guy with no cojones and no love for his wife Amy, moves to a small town in England where they move into a farmhouse. Local drunk men are building a garage for them. They all wanna have sex with Amy. And that is okay apparently, because, she wears no bra and her nipples are visible through her sweater. And when a woman dresses like a slut, as the old saying goes. That is the message here. I kid you not. David treats Amy like crap. He doesn't pay any attention to her and wants to be left alone to work on his math. Amy is understandably frustrated and when she tries to tell him they want her, he tells her that they have good taste and that she should wear a bra. They have the local reverend over who invite them to annual festivity in the town.Afterwards David tells Amy how attractive the reverends wife is. Husband of the year right? But it gets worse. The men strangle Amy's cat. Amy knows who did it but David refuse to do anything about it.At one point David orders Amy to go take a shower (he does that a lot) and tells her to close the curtains, because the working men can look into the bathroom from the roof of the garage. To spite David she flashes her breasts in front of all the men. Dumb move. But that doesn't justify what happens next. Because later on two of the men rape Amy while the clueless dumb David is hunting ducks with some of the other men. And let me be clear here: nothing justifies rape!! Absolutely Nothing!! The fact that Amy partially enjoys the rape as it appears, it seems to me is because, she gets no love or affection from David. And she desperately wants that. So she just takes it where she can get it. Amy doesn't tell her a-hole world class husband that she's been raped. Because she knows he won't believe her anyway. He even scolds her once more right after the rape scene. All David does after that is firing the men that builds the garage. But I suspect he only does it to get his wife off his back about the dead cat.At the end of the movie He goes as far as protecting a local dimwitted pedophile, after accidentally hitting him with his car. The pedophile has killed a girl just moments before this. David doesn't know this,but he should care about his wife, not some guy that poses a threat to him and Amy, because the men outside want the pedophile. Instead of just handing him over to the men, he kills most of them, not to protect Amy but the pedophile. Some of the men kill each other.Then David asks Amy for the first time if she is okay. She nods and he takes the dimwitted murdering pedophile to a hospital.The movie ends.All this movie does is being sexist towards women. It tells us that it's okay that a man doesn't pay attention to his wife when she acts childish (wants her husband to pay her attention to her and be there for her)because she disturbs him in his work which is more important to him than his wife. It also tells us that because a woman dresses a little naughty and flirts with local men it's okay that they rape her. Because she brought it on herself.It also tells us that murdering a teenage girl is okay, because she brought it on herself, trying to seduce the pedophile. And he's dim-witted so he can't help himself.Has this movie taken place 100 years ago or at any point in time in the middle east, David's behavior towards his wife might have made sense. I have no idea why this movie is considered a masterpiece. People who praise this crap must be sexists and hate women.Avoid this turd of a movie.

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onpunch-adl
1972/01/03

Minor Spoilers. I made a mistake and watched the remake first. I thought it was pretty good so i looked up the reviews for the original and they were mostly 8- 10s. So i got interested,I gotta say the remake is way better. The couple is unconvincing, they are more like two strangers living together. The women seems more in love with her rapists then her husband and she doesn't really care that hes being attacked and barely tries to help him. The first hour feels like its from a separate movie then the last hour. The fact that this movie was banned for a while astounds me. Sure it might've offended some people back in '71, but its far from gruesome. Skip this and watch the remake. Like i said just because its old doesn't make it a classic.

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jinsilver
1972/01/04

A collection of caricatures go through the motions of a terrible script, phoning in even the most dramatic moments, spoiling an exciting premise. I'm not even referring to the Cornwall yokels here, who are at least amusing; it's the two main characters who end up being the greatest let-downs, along with the simplistic morality play of a story itself. To its credit, the film is gorgeous, full of beautiful countryside and rustic town, but that can hardly carry two hours of melodrama.Dustin Hoffman plays a perfect effete professor stereotype, a self-centered coward smugly certain of his superiority, and due to that, the near-instant switch into unbeatable gladiator makes little sense. An explosion of rage and dishing out a few good hits before going down, perhaps. This is no Falling Down, where someone on the verge of cracking for a long time finally does; this is someone who becomes savage against his nature, and somehow conjures the skill to kill every enemy. A male superhero fantasy.Susan George is competent as a petulant brat, always needing attention, pushy yet unwilling to take personal action; the nature of their relationship or why they left is never explained, but it's hinted to be teacher/student. Unfortunately, her character never really goes anywhere, and her acting never gives any nuance to even the charged, violent scene preceding the rape. The only time she seems convincing is in the bedroom scene following David's return.The bizarre direction of the rape, that quiet tenderness suggesting that the first wasn't really rape after all, that deep down an attention-seeking girl is really looking for masculine violence from her paramour that she isn't getting from her husband, really confuses me... almost a rape fantasy. And then the whole purpose of the rape is just to create some extra justification for killing the louts, along with audience titillation. In 1971, it may have been shocking to put an on-screen rape in a mainstream movie, kicking off Last House on the Left and a whole series of rape-revenge movies, but now it just looks exploitative and badly done.Rounding out the cast, there's a few louts, an affable retired army major, a teen temptress, her drunken old father, and a retarded pedophile. Their names are hardly important, because all they do is fill a role.Beyond that, no action in the film looks real. The hits don't look real. The deaths don't look real. The rape doesn't look real.Overall, there's nothing in here but a generic western, uprooted and moved to Scotland, and any nuance the story could have had is missing.

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Nemesis42
1972/01/05

Extremely powerful piece of work, though I can not say it was enjoyable but excruciating. For me the female lead created a lot of woe in this film. She is brilliantly naive and annoying and causes so much conflict for the plot to chew upon. The actress performs awesomely, as does every other actor in this. !0/10 for script, casting, character development and direction. Brilliant film making team work but not a pleasant film. Very memorable though.In film school I did an essay on an aspect of films regarding how often female characters are used as plot obstacles for the males to overcome in order to advance the story. Here this is happening, yet it goes further in that her suffering becomes a big part of the story along side her carrying out so many ultimately destructive actions. There are also many male characters that perform many destructive actions here. I recommend this if you appreciate solid character development.

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