When a man is pushed to his limits by inbred townies what is the best solution? Hot grease and bear traps of course! I love me a good home invasion movie. There is something inherently fascinating about the tension that is created by the reluctant hero/homeowner and whatever lunatic(s) are outside, divided by only by a wall, a door, or god help us gigantic bay windows.
Last night I watched Straw Dogs, both the 1971 and 2011 versions, with the pure intent of doing a compare and contrast. As with any remake, there were a lot of haters, as many critics hail the original Straw Dogs starring Dustin Hoffman as “groundbreaking.” Yes groundbreaking for its time, but since then the outright cruelty and violence that once made Straw dogs unique is now common fare in most thriller and horror genre movies. I am not mad that this movie was remade, mostly because characters modifications needed to be made to make the meat of story seem more believable.
The two movies are extremely similar, with identically dialogue in many places as well as “artistic edits.” The main differences are location, (1971 small town England v. 2011 small town south Mississippi), the likeability/strength of the female lead (1971 Susan George’s Amy v. 2011 Kate Bosworth’s Amy) and the length/intensity of the final battle (1971 drawn out and bloody v. 2011 shorter but more chaos).
It is easy to make the argument that it is a total cop out to use “hillbillies” as your villain, as it has already been perfected in movies like Deliverance and over the top is movies like The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn. However, the “hillbillies” in the 2011 version are not the inbred slop of horror movies, but rather Rednecks with feelings and drinking problems. They seem to care about each other and the town as a whole who all regular engage in the two best things small town Mississippi has to offer, high school football and church. In the 1971 version the townies are all poor, illiterate rat catchers. Nothing really defines the town or why they care about each other so much, other than drinks at the pub, in 1971 I can’t see why everyone is friends, they look like strangers to each other v. 2011 where I can see the friendship and why they would stick together in a bind. While both location settings had their merit, it was who the characters interacted in the setting that the 2011 version pulled ahead. Alexander Skarsgard’s Charlie (Eric from True Blood, yummm soooooo hoooooot) seemed much more menacing and conflicted and engaged in the movie more than Del Henney’s Charlie who only really seemed to become the villain after the rape scene. I was wary of Skarsgard way before the rape.
I’m sorry but didn’t women get all empowered n’ shit in the 60’s? I would have thought by 1971 that we could maybe stop the whole subservient thing but apparently not. In the 71’ version Susan George portrays Amy as a childish, clueless bored housewife and perhaps that was the whole point; to make the character of David and his transformation from mild mannered mathematician to bad ass mother fucker seem more drastic by juxtaposing him with weaker mate. James Marsden (I think he is an underrated actor) in the 2011 version does not need a whining companion to show his transformation, if anything I think Kate Bosworth’s portrayal of Amy as strong willed but also vulnerable through being ignored by David goes along much better with all the other characters in the film, the two main characters in 11’ rely on each other more to survive and that is more admirable in the long run.. While both rape scenes are brutal (well not actually that brutal if you have seen Irreversible) the 11’ version actually shows you how cruel the “villains” are v. 71’ which is almost has the character of Amy bordering on Stockholm syndrome, just saying'.
Overall the final scene where the angry townies overrun the house are the same except for length and the amount of fight David puts up. Obviously in the remake the hand to hand complete feels a little more choreographed but it cuts to the chase faster with more fire hazards, something I am not sure I was that fond of but it sure beat out Amy’s whining and protesting to help David in the 71’ version.
Both were good but for different reasons. It’s hard to remake something that had a stronger association and gave a sucker punch to a certain era and it’s always easy to replace your villain with Eric from True Blood.
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