The Hateful Eight

By the time you are reading this, Christmas will be over. The turkey eaten, the crackers all cracked, and the presents all opened. All that’s left is to set yourself some resolutions for the coming year like, maybe, go see more movies. And, if you are going, you could do a lot worse than going to see the latest offering from Quentin Tarantino – The Hateful Eight.

Set in post-civil war Wyoming, The Hateful… is the story of bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) who, whilst trying to escort his prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to face justice at the end of a rope, is forced to take shelter when a particularly nasty blizzard hits. Add to this a chance encounter with another bounty hunter (Samuel L Jackson) and some other nefarious and mysterious characters (Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, Michael Madsen...) and the stage is set for a tale of intrigue, deception and betrayal. I could tell you more about the plot – especially as the script was publically released last year, much to Tarantino’s chagrin - but I'm not going to. Because I haven't read it. And why would you want to? Spoilers belong on sports cars, not in movie reviews.

What I will tell you are the facts. Firstly, to give you an idea of the feel of the movie, Tarantino has said that he was inspired by watching John Carpenter’s The Thing. In fact, so much that the actors were all required to watch it before shooting started. Secondly, judging by how the premise of both movies is that they involve groups of people cut off and isolated from the rest of the world by bad weather, expect themes of distrust and paranoia. Lastly, this being a Tarantino movie, it would be fair of you to expect a high body count, a lot of aesthetic pleasure, and some swearing. OK, a motherfucking shitload of swearing. And you, my friends, would not be wrong.