Straw Dogs

How do gender stereotypes affect men and women today? How important is it for a man to be the brave one and for the woman to be the damsel in distress? What makes us want to change ourselves in order to fit these stereotypes? These are questions that are the underlying ideas in Straw Dogs, an effective yet very scary and well made horror movie.

Straw Dogs stars Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush) and James Marsden (X-Men) as David and Amy, a married couple that moves back into Amy's old house in order to fix it up a bit. They decide to hire a few of the local hicks to help them, led by Amy's old boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård from True Blood). At first, things start out okay until the hicks start doing things that most people frown upon; inviting themselves in the house, raiding the fridge, killing Amy's cat, raping Amy while David is away on a hunting adventure, you know...little annoyances like that. Amy tries to deal with these situations in a more agressive manner than David, leading her to believe that David is a big coward and that she pretty much has to be the man in the relationship. But later on in the movie, David will get his chance to wear the pants in the relationship as the local hicks invade David and Amy's house with the intent to hurt anyone in their way.

I think the perfect choices were made in casting Kate Bosworth and James Marsden as the lead roles. Kate Bosworth is pretty stellar as the wife with all of the cojones in the relationship and James Marsden is entirely believable as the husband who is pushed to his breaking point. Oh, and the hicks are pretty creepy as well, there's an air of menace surrounding them the entire movie which works for the characters they are portraying.

Though not a ton of action occurs in the first hour or so, there's a lot of set up which was necessary to understand what was going on in David's head when things hit their worst point; the expectations of his role as the man in the relationship and his need to protect himself and his wife from anything or anyone else. But once he gets the chance to prove this, Straw Dogs becomes a very thrilling horror movie. The ways that he knocks down the hicks are so fucking awesome and badass, props for using a bear trap in a different way than I have ever seen in any other movie. You know what's going to happen but it's a hell of a ride to watch as David and Amy play cat and mouse with the locals.

Straw Dogs works because it provides a source of tension long before the bloodshed (the awesome, awesome bloodshed) hits the screen. The performances are solid in setting up character arcs that will ultimately be defined and changed in later scenes and Straw Dogs has enough menace to keep audiences entertained from beginning to end even when nothing terribly exciting or gruesome is occurring on screen. It's a bit different than the average horror movie hitting theaters these days and it has a good message about gender definitions and how they can be displayed in just one course of action. Straw Dogs is a must see for those who like a bit of story with their displays of blood and violence.

3/4