Amoeba Music

Deliverance is a wholly original American film, directed by a Brit, an action survival thriller in the Straw Dogs mode. Ahead of its time in ’72 it precluded a number of genres that would emerge over the decades from “hillbillyxploitation” of the '70s to “torture porn” of more recent years. Films from Southern Comfort to The Descent have been explained and pitched as “Deliverance with…” No film since has been able to combine the stunning filmmaking and the shock, but not just for shock's sake. This isn’t an exploitation film, beneath the horror there is great and powerful purpose, when man takes on wild nature, he also finds out what is buried in his own nature.

Instead of an easy weekend of golfing, four Atlanta white collar guys get out of their depth with a canoe trip on a river that is slowly being damned up deep in the Appalachian mountains. The trio are linked by the family man Ed (Jon Voight); he is joined by two cronies completely out of their comfort zone, Bobby (Ned Beatty in his film debut) and Drew (Ronny Cox, Richard “Dick” Jones of Robocop). Luckily joining them in the adventures is he-man Lewis (Burt Reynolds), who seems to know what he’s doing and who is quite the Hemingwayesque philosopher as well, “sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything.”

If you like your ultra-violence with a pulse, you must see Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs—the tale of David and Amy Sumner, played with fervor by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. Unlike Hoffman’s more well-known portrayals of a man with wisdom and/or humor, his performance in the film produces a chill and admiration that could rival with any cold-blooded killer onscreen. He plays a mathematician who, with his wife, decides to take up residency in her native village of rural England. A place that seems peaceful, yet is nothing but—occupied with Cornish thugs, rat-breeders, tyrants and more than one sexual deviant.

While trying to find relaxation and work on their marriage and his profession, the two find themselves in a vicious and animalistic race to restore peace, David’s masculinity, and to survive. After days of passive-aggressive plots, spiteful conversation, and violence against women, a local girl goes missing. The man suspected of her demise, Henry Niles (David Warner), the town metal-handicap, winds up in the Sumner’s custody one evening. While protecting him in his home, a war unfolds between Sumner and the village thugs, unleashing a competition of wit vs. experience that sends more than one man to their graves.