Southern Comfort (1981, Walter Hill)

Between 1975 to 1982, director Walter Hill holds in my mind to be a legendary hot streak of 6 terrific "tough guy" films in a row. Though not all commercial successes, this film however was a major commercial flop, despite drawing in some critical praise.

Set in 1973, a motley crew of national guardsmen head deep into the Cajun bayou country on the promise of prostitutes during a training session. However things go horribly wrong once an incredibly foolish prank occurs. 

Now, upon encountering numerous great hixploitation flicks, let's just say one of the key lessons I've walked away with is to most defiantly... not piss off the locals! So... yeah their captain get's shot in the head and inevitable chaos ensues. 

From here on out, it's a fight for survival against the Cajuns, themselves and the endless unforgiving bayou, and as luck would have it, they're only packing blanks due to being in training. However, one of the crew had sneaked in a case of live ammunition. 

In light of all this, of course fear and paranoia begins to sink in, and one of the members even appears to go insane. 

The film can clearly be seen an allegory to the Vietnam War (even if Hill himself refuses to acknowledge this), with ill-trained solders impinging upon alien land, unwanted. On-top of this, they steel local property and fire their weapons at will on the locals, clearly thinking they're better than these 'local hicks'. 

However they soon find how grave a mistake they have made once they begin to drop one by one amongst the many booby traps, and due to the fact that they're on unknown territory. Not to mention a soldier losing his marbles, as did many young soldiers in Vietnam. They even speak a different language, a sort of Cajun French if you will.

Besides Walter Hill's hard ass direction, we also got our reluctant heroes, the always awesome Powers Boothe playing a Texan tough guy, and Keith Carradine who's character is a sort of southern aristocrat. Not to mention Fred Ward in a very early role as the ass-hole of the pack and a Walter Hill favourite Brion James, they're all just terrific.

That feel of dread and paranoia is beyond accentuated here, akin to that of Race with the Devil, The Thing or Aliens (to which Walter Hill was actually one of the writers). However upon its release, was compared heavily to Deliverance (including the poster itself), for very obvious reasons. Aiding in the atmosphere of southern doom is the alluring score by Ry Cooder which is just pitch perfect for the material. It's one of his finest musical scores.

In short, it's a brutal film made in the great pre-CGI days with it's message still prevalent today. Peace is clearly impossible if prejudice still prevails. 

Rating:  A- 

Click here for the trailer

Official Pairing: Rituals (1977, Peter Carter)