Straw Dogs
by Sam Peckinpah
List Price:
Our Price: $3.94
You Save: $11.04 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Del Henney, Dustin Hoffman, Peter Vaughan, Susan George, T.P. McKennaDirector: Sam Peckinpah
Cinematographer: John Coquillon
Editor: Paul Davies
Editor: Tony Lawson
Editor: Roger Spottiswoode
Writer: Gordon Williams
Writer: David Zelag Goodman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Straw Dogs
Movie Review: What a bunch of English wankers.
Summary: 3 Stars
Straw Dogs is a good film, but one that causes me to look down on limeys. Usually, Englishmen are respectable enough. However, I find myself losing respect for them after watching this film. Perhaps Sam Peckinpah was somehow inaccurate in his portrayal of limeys as depraved animals. Even in British director Peter Greenaway's films, notably The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, the characters aren't usually all bad. In Straw Dogs, all the Englishmen are depraved.
Take the Hedden family, for instance. Headed by the old, filthy drunk Tom (Peter Vaughan), they are a bunch of neer-do-wells who spent most of their time crawling about the local pub and screwing their own sister. The daughter in this case is Janice (Sally Thomsett), who is treated as a sex object both by her father and her teenaged brother, Bobby (Len Jones). Hell, even Bobby seems to be portrayed as a scumbag with all his incestuous yearnings and misogynistic attitude toward his own sister.
Then there's the trio of workers hired by David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), to make repairs on his home. One guy, Cawsey (Jim Norton) steals a pair of Amy's (Susan George) knickers for his own amusement. The other two men, Venner (Del Henney) and Scutt (Ken Hutchison), invite David on a hunting trip, only to sneak back to his cottage and rape Amy in a most brutal scene. The first rapist, Venner, isn't entirely without feelings but is still an animalistic scumbag. Scutt is an utter degenerate.
Speaking of perverts, there's also child molester and one-time pedarast Henry Niles (David Warner), who, despite warnings from his older brother John (Peter Arne), continues to go about his perverted ways with Janice. Her eventual fate causes all hell to break lose. The only other main English characters in the film, including Major Scott (T.P. Mckenna) and Reverend Hood (Colin Welland) aren't given much to do besides drink and ogle Amy.
Most of these parties eventually meet to culminate in a half-hour siege on the Sumners' home, where David kills all his attackers in an orgy of bloodletting. Thus, ending a quite decadent movie full of animals and sexual perverts.
Sure, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch featured its share of loathsome degenerates, but Straw Dogs isn't set in America. That's the difference. I feel Straw Dogs would've worked better if Peckinpah did some research on Cornish rednecks in general and not portray them as such monsters in the film.
Summary of Straw Dogs
One of Sam Peckinpah's most controversial efforts, this film came out at a critical moment in the early 1970s, released in the same month as both Dirty Harry and A Clockwork Orange, causing a furor over film violence. Based on a little-known British novel, the film casts Dustin Hoffman as a bookish American mathematician on sabbatical in rural England, in the town where his young bride (Susan George) grew up. He finds himself forced to defend his home against an assault by local toughs, and discovers a frighteningly feral and vicious side to himself. Though Straw Dogs has a reputation for graphic violence, it actually looks tame by contemporary standards. Instead, the violence is psychological, and the suspense and shocks are induced by the editing--you're more terrified by what you think you see than by what you are actually shown. --Marshall FineBrace yourself for the extended version of this daring and provocative drama from the director of The Wild Bunch. Starring Dustin Hoffman in a 'superbly realized (Time) performance, this brilliant (Cue), disturbing film charts one man's brutally violent journey from cowardice to courage and delivers one helluva jolt (Playboy)!
Action & Adventure DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Best-of-the-Year Movies of the 1970s (Part I)
Amarcord (Criterion Collection)Release date: 2006-09-05; DVD
Best price: $26.99
Price in other shops:
Blazing Saddles (30th Anniversary Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2004-06-29; DVD
Best price: $4.12
Price in other shops:
Young FrankensteinTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-09-05; DVD
Best price: $6.92
Price in other shops:
Black Christmas (Special Edition)Koch International; Release date: 2006-12-05; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
The ConversationRelease date: 2000-12-12; DVD
Best price: $4.76
Price in other shops:
The Godfather, Part II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)PACINO,AL; Release date: 2005-05-24; DVD
Best price: $4.94
Price in other shops:
Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)Release date: 2007-11-06; DVD
Best price: $8.20
Price in other shops:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2-Disc Ultimate Edition)MPI; Release date: 2006-09-26; DVD
Best price: $15.44
Price in other shops:
Live and Let DieTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-09-04; DVD
Best price: $6.39
Price in other shops:
BadlandsRelease date: 1999-04-27; DVD
Best price: $12.79
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
The LimeyLION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT; Release date: 2001-02-20; DVD
Best price: $3.71
Price in other shops:
Midnight CowboyRelease date: 2000-01-01; DVD
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
Bonnie and ClydeRelease date: 1999-05-18; DVD
Best price: $4.63
Price in other shops:
Taxi Driver (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)Sony; Release date: 2007-08-14; DVD
Best price: $11.77
Price in other shops:
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Two-Disc Special Edition)Release date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $12.39
Price in other shops:
Marathon ManRelease date: 2001-08-28; DVD
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
Point BlankWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-07-05; DVD
Best price: $12.29
Price in other shops:
The Getaway (Deluxe Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2005-05-31; DVD
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops:
The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-01-10; DVD
Best price: $10.97
Price in other shops:
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2005-03-22; DVD
Best price: $5.34
Price in other shops: