Color, 1981, 99 mins. Directed by Walter Hill
Starring Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Franklyn Seales, T.K. Carter, Brion James, Lewis Smith / Music by Ry Cooder / Cinematography by Andrew Laszlo
Format: DVD - MGM (MSRP $14.95)
Letterboxed (1.85:1) (16x9 enhanced) / Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
"Not since Deliverance," proclaimed the poster for Southern Comfort,
director Walter Hill's underrated follow up to his solid western, The
Long Riders. While the central concept of the film - a group of men
stranded in the wilderness fighting the elements and unseen human foes -
bears some resemblance to Boorman's
In the opening prologue, a group of weekend warriors for the National
Guard are dispatched for a training mission into the bayous of
Louisiana. The ostensible leader of the group, Poole (Peter Coyote), is
unable to contain some of the more reckless recruits, who suggest
swiping some of the locals' conoes for a little sunny rafting. When the
Cajuns appear and begin shouting protest, one of the men fires back in
jest, igniting an impromptu war which finds the amateur soldiers
scurrying for their lives through dark, unfamiliar territory besieged
with booby traps. Along the way they pick up a hostage, a one-armed
Cajun trapper (the late Brion James), but their captive only serves to further
muddy the waters. As their numbers dwindle, the men must resort to
increasingly extreme methods of survival to make it back to civilization
alive.
Southern Comfort could be read on many levels: an indictment of blind
macho posturing, a critique of myopic American military strategies in
Vietnam and the ensuing trauma suffering by soldiers, and most
obviously, a primal nightmare in which the viewer is trapped in a
strange, menacing land, stalked by invisible assailants out for blood.
Keith Carradine and the unfairly overlooked Powers Boothe provide
excellent performances as the most sympathetic of the Guardsmen, and
regular Hill composer Ry Cooder turns in his finest score ever, a
chilling concoction of Cajun musical tradition and atonal suspense
riffs. The supporting cast is also typically strong for Hill, including T.K. Carter (one year before Carpenter's The Thing, Fred Ward, and many others. (Look closely at one of the hunter Cajuns to spot Radley Metzger hardcore porn actor Sonny Landham, also a Hill regular.) However, the real star here is Hill, who perfectly evokes the
Barely released on home video and only viewable on late night cable
screenings, Southern Comfort has suffered from notoriously bad
video transfers which drowned the shadowy cinematography in a blanket of
grain and muddy colors. The MGM DVD undoes most of the damage with a
sharp anamorphic transfer (which, like most other Hill titles, mattes
off information from the top and bottom compared to the full frame VHS
masters). The film will never look like a glossy big budget production,
but this is by far the best edition ever available, in many respects
outclassing the carelessly produced theatrical prints. For some reason a
mild jitter is evident in highly detailed areas during anamorphic
playback on some monitors (watch Coyote's mouth during the prologue) but
is completely absent on others. The mono audio is fine, duplicating the
original mono track with good fidelity and no fancy whistles and bells.
The sole extra is an excellent, gripping theatrical trailer, which
should be enough for the ridiculously low price tag. The only major
gripe lies with the DVD cover art, which slaps a confederate flag behind
the title and makes this look like a trashy, Z-grade '80s war film.
Don't be fooled; this is an impressive, nerve-shredding film,
recommended without reservations.
1973 film, the agenda here is quite
different and much closer to horror film territory, resulting in an
underrated, memorable film deserving of a much more sizeable cult
following.
soggy, treacherous environment with insidious skill, pulling one
surprise after another as the men dodge falling trees, man traps, and
much, much worse. However, Hill's real moment to shine comes in the
horrific final 20 minutes, which provides a devastating twist on the
"return to civilization" coda from Deliverance which instead notches up
the terror tenfold. Be warned, this sequence also contains a genuine (if
extremely common) animal slaughter that may put you off bacon for the
rest of your life. However, this element is responsibly handled and
integrates smoothly as a powerful, extremely bloody metaphor for the
survivors' plight.
