YMMV / Straw Dogs (1971)

---

• Designated Villain: According to Sam Peckinpah, David is the true villain of the story. Throughout the movie, we witness his truly villainous actions such as trying to be civil and friendly with the local hoodlums, bringing up the crusaders to a reverend who all but accused him (a nuclear physicist) as being directly responsible for the atom bomb, refusing to hand over a terrified man on the word of a drunken lynch mob he has no reason to trust, and killing them in self-defense. The closest thing he does to an evil act would be killing a deserving Charlie, who he actually picked the fight with, but even then, that seemed to be the result of escalation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A meek, intellectual American bullied by the violent and thuggish Europeans? This was one of the reasons the remake moved the setting to the Deep South. The original novel from which the film traces itself had the same American in England setting, and the whole class dynamic, (Amy coming from the village and marrying someone outside her class and being uncomfortable coming back), really does suit the film, as is the notion of an American wanting to "stand his ground".
• Moral Event Horizon: Gang-raping Amy for both Charlie and Scut. Though David doesn't learn that they did this, and Charlie stops Scut from raping Amy a second time.
• Narm: David shouting "bastard!" at Tom Hedden after he killed the Major. Amy makes a rather odd yelping noise after Charlie is killed by David.
• Questionable Casting: Dustin Hoffman disagreed with the casting of Susan George, as he felt his character would never marry such a "Lolita-ish" kind of girl.
• The Woobie: Poor Amy Sumner, who never wanted to return to her village, whose advice and suggestions (about firing those workmen) are ignored by David, who gets raped by her ex-boyfriend and a creep, gets subjugated to more violence, and is even slapped by David at the end,(albeit to prevent her from getting them both killed) and ends up killing someone. It's quite clear that her marriage with David is finished at the end, and she will have years of trauma to deal with.

---