Critic Reviews
Straw Dogs (1971) Rank 3 Reviews
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based on (62) reviews
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Film Freak Central Review (Walter Chaw)
Straw Dogs is about an evil man who has so divorced himself from animal logic that he's become monstrous. He's cruel to his wife, comparing her to a child when she's lonesome and an animal when she's amorous, and he blames her for his detachment from ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Film Freak Central Review (Walter Chaw)
iofilm.co.uk - DVD review
Raging Bull (Mike Lorefice)
When looking for a tense film, look no further than Straw Dogs. It's little exaggeration to say this film builds tension in every frame until it reaches an unparalleled level and there's no turning back from the violence. The film utilizes common two ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Raging Bull (Mike Lorefice)
Gotterdammerung (Branislav L. Slantchev)
It is impossible to view Straw Dogs without reference to its historical time frame: the Vietnam War, and the civil rights violence. It is also nearly impossible without reference to the various forms of abuse and violence in the film itself: ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Gotterdammerung (Branislav L. Slantchev)
DVD Movie Guide
However, these cases differ when we examine their legacies. On one hand, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange has generally become recognized as a classic, and it stands among the director’s best work. (Personally, I think it’s his only totally ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at DVD Movie Guide
PopMatters
Sam Peckinpah hated violence, or so he always claimed. And still he made The Wild Bunch, one of the most outrageously violent movies yet made when it came out in 1969. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at PopMatters
Bearded Freak's Review
British Horror Films
Now that all the furore has died down, it's clear for us all to see - Straw Dogs is not a horror film. It's also kind of hard to see what all the fuss was about, as well. Perhaps watching it on murky pirate video for all those years lent it a "nastiness" ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at British Horror Films
Movie House Commentary
Dustin Hoffman and Susan George play a husband and wife. Hoffman is a Casper Milquetoast mathematician from America, George is his simple wife from a working class family in a small town in rural England. They return to George's childhood home to allow ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Movie House Commentary
Britmovie
Loosely based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams, Sam Peckinpah's controversial revenge drama is a brutal study of a liberal man being pushed to committing acts of violence. Available on video for a brief period during the ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Britmovie
Slant Magazine
In his first foray outside the Western, maverick director Sam Peckinpah took to the Cornish countryside for his 1972 powder keg Straw Dogs, situating his story of unbridled primal masculinity amidst a damp, harsh landscape of rolling hills, scraggly ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Slant Magazine
Edinburgh U Film Society (Stephen Cox)
One of the most comprehensively misunderstood films of all time. An American astro-mathematician (Dustin Hoffman) taking a sabbatical arrives in Cornwall with his native English wife (Susan George). They are treated with a mixture of awe and ridicule by ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Edinburgh U Film Society (Stephen Cox)
Appreciating Great Trash
Exclaim! (--)
This 1971 film is every pacifist’s worst nightmare, one that would send Gandhi into a moral quandary. Dustin Hoffman plays a mild-mannered mathematician who flees the societal strife of late ’60s America, ending up in his British wife’s rural ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Exclaim! (--)
Lawrence Russell's Film Court (Lawrence Russell)
Sometimes verging on the ludicrous, this film is a curious blend of Hollywood hyperbole and British Masterpiece Theatre. It's technically so well done, you might almost believe it. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Lawrence Russell's Film Court (Lawrence Russell)
not coming to a theater near you (Rumsey Taylor)
It is a dilemmatic circumstance, as the discrimination that founds the conflict between David and the townsmen may occur between the viewer and the film, in result of its final act. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at not coming to a theater near you (Rumsey Taylor)
Salon.com (Michael Sragow)
Eyes Wide Shut -- and the cooked-up debates surrounding it -- are only about sex in the head. Peckinpah gives you sex as a kick in the groin, a jolt to the brain and a shot to the heart. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Salon.com (Michael Sragow)
DVD Verdict
This is the first exposure that I have had to Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Although I'm not sure that the critical community really needs another young lit student analyzing this controversial film, I will step up and do my best; hopefully helping others ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at DVD Verdict
FilmStew.com (Todd Gilchrist)
But as interested as Peckinpah seemed to be in creating the kind of action ballet that filmmakers like John Woo have since turned into a mainstream commodity, his films never allowed the audience to enjoy the sensation of being swept over by ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at FilmStew.com (Todd Gilchrist)
filmsgraded.com (Brian Koller)
What makes Straw Dogs so fascinating is that many of the scenes and characters are open to multiple, varied interpretation. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at filmsgraded.com (Brian Koller)
LeisureSuit.net (--)
As you probably know, Straw Dogs is about a young American couple who move to the English countryside to get away from the violence that's tearing apart the United States, and find themselves antagonized by the brutish Englishmen to the point that the ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at LeisureSuit.net (--)
Hollywood Reporter (Douglas Pratt)
Upon first viewing, it seems like a straightforward film, but the more one watches it, the more tension one sees in the relationship between the couple. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Hollywood Reporter (Douglas Pratt)
Images (Gary Johnson)
A remarkable movie. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Images (Gary Johnson)
Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
Feminists, espousers of non-violence, and self-defense activists have been battling out the meaning of this morality play for nearly 30 years now. The time may have arrived for a fresh re-examination. ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
JoBlo.com's DVD Clinic
Sam Peckinpah was a man’s man and he directed movies about real men put in extreme circumstances; and if you were watching a Peckinpah film, you could always count on a considerable amount of blood being shed as themes of honor and moments of great ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at JoBlo.com's DVD Clinic
Horror View
Did she like it? That's the question that surrounded this film upon it's release, and to this day raises much debate. The SHE I'm reffering to is Amy Sumner (Susan George), and the IT is perhaps one of the most notorious rape scenes ever filmed, not ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Horror View
DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson)
The cult of Sam Peckinpah has waned of late, mainly because the excesses of violence that marked his best films have long since been eclipsed by decades of graphic action films. But none can touch his best work, because Peckinpah had a theme and an ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson)
DVDBeaver.com (Gary W. Tooze)
'A young American mathematician, David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), and his English wife, Amy (Susan George), move to a Cornish village, seeking the quiet life. But beneath the seemingly peaceful isolation of the pastoral village lies a savagery and violence ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at DVDBeaver.com (Gary W. Tooze)
Cutting Edge (--)
David Sumner, een Amerikaans professor wiskunde, trekt zich met zijn beurs en jonge vrouw terug op het Engelse platteland. Vast van plan een wiskundig meesterwerk op tafel te leggen, hoopt hij de nodige rust te vinden. David is namelijk een man die het ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Cutting Edge (--)
Time Out (--)
Taking elements of both the Western and the British horror film, Peckinpah's masterstroke was to shoot Straw Dogs absolutely straight, without the reassuring signposts of either type of film. Hoffman's American mathematician settles with his wife in the ...read the complete Straw Dogs movie review at Time Out (--)
User Reviews
by Peter Hoogenboom ... on November 26, 2008
Eerie and disconcerting from the very first frame. ...
by Au Hasard Jonatha... on November 19, 2007
I've now seen Straw Dogs 7 times. The first time I saw it years ago, I thought it was pretty good, kind of slow, but good. The second time I fell in love with ...
by James N Simpson on November 16, 2007
If you enjoyed this movie you should also check out the 1969 Gordon Williams novel The siege of Trencher's Farm which has also be republished with the same title as the movie Straw Dogs. The book has some similarities to the movie but the siege is very ...
by Joyce A. Hobson "... on October 29, 2007
I really and truly enjoyed his film!! People may wonder why me being a woman with 2 adult children-but you see I married young and grew up in the mixed up 1970's It was really and truly like that between young girls and young men!! Shockingly today that ...
by Jenny J.J.I. "A N... on October 24, 2007
This film is one of the best works of Sam Peckinpah this movie deals with the true humanitarian phenomena, human nature for sexual orientation and needs and the most human seduction and temptation. This movie thrills you from the start to the end and the ...
by Robert P. Beverid... on September 21, 2007
Straw ...
by Michael E. Johnso... on August 14, 2007
Straw Dogs is one of the best films made by legendary director Sam Peckinpah. Starring Dustin Hoffman it is a tense and well make character study that transforms into an out and out action slash horror film. And to think this film came out in 1971. ...
by Jacques COULARDEA... on April 03, 2007
Dustin Hoffman was young then, young and slightly mellow, maybe even plump. In this film he has a delicate role and he is learning the trade. He has to be both a mathematician immersed in his maths and a husband reacting to his wife's feeling of ...
by Nick Schwab "Film... on March 22, 2007
As an unsettling and draining look into the horrors of fascist and territorial ideas breed out of masculinity, the 1971 ...
by Bruce Gates on March 04, 2007
I will start with my thesis, namely that this film is one of the single greatest American films of all time, ridiculously complex psychologically, completely satisfying on an aesthetic level but at the same time hating itself as said success. Not a shot ...
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