Straw Dogs (1971)
 Sam Peckinpah's controversial film about David Sumner, an
American mathematician, and Amy, his young beautiful wife, moving
to a secluded Cornish village was banned in the UK for nearly 30
years after it's production.
Almost immediately after arriving in Cornwall, there is tension
between the couple as David becomes immersed in his academic work
while ignoring Amy.
Craving attention, Amy begins to flirt with several of the
burly town locals (Jim Norton, Peter Vaughan, Ken Hutchison,
Donald Webster) doing repair work on the couple's isolated
farmhouse.
One of these locals is Amy's former lover Charlie Venner (Del
Henney). Amy's flirtations and David's intellectual reserve create
resentment, and the workmen begin to subtly taunt and harass
them.
David discovers their pet cat strangled and hanging by a light
chain in their bedroom closet. Amy claims the workmen did it to
prove they could get into their bedroom and to intimidate
David.
She presses him to confront the villagers, but he refuses.
Instead, David tries to win their friendship, and they invite him
to go hunting in the woods the next day. During the hunting trip,
the workmen take him to a remote forest meadow and leave him there
with the promise they will drive the birds towards him.
Having ditched David, Charlie Venner returns to the couple's
farmhouse where he confronts Amy. He beats her and rapes her. A
second villager arrives and forces Venner by shotgun to hold Amy
down while he also rapes her.
After several hours, David realises he's been tricked and
returns home to find a dishevelled and withdrawn Amy. She does not
tell him about the gang rape.
Later that week, they attend a church social where Amy becomes
distraught after seeing the men who raped her. David and Amy leave
the social early and while driving home accidentally hit the
village idiot Henry Niles (David Warner). They take the injured
Niles to their home and David calls the town pub about the
accident.
Unbeknownst to him, earlier that evening Niles strangled a
young girl from the village, and now the workmen are looking for
Niles. The phone call alerts them to Niles' whereabouts.
Soon the drunken locals - including the men who raped Amy - are
pounding on the door of the Sumner's home. When David refuses to
hand Niles over to the mob they attempt to break in to the
house.
Forced into action in defence of his home, David embarks on an
uncharacteristic spree of violence, descending into a murderous
rage, violently murdering all the attackers.
For a film that was banned for so long, it is not particularly
violent, and is now perhaps one of the more dated examples of
early 70's cinema. Sadly the movie is most remembered for the (at
the time) controversial rape scene.
The rape scene is by far the most harrowing part of this film.
It's quite obvious that Amy also hates the fact that she is
enjoying it, and hates herself for liking it. It is also quite
obvious that Amy does not enjoy the sodomy by the second man (while
her ex-boyfriend holds her down) which follows immediately after.
The movie is loosely based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's
Farm by Gordon Williams.
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