Unless you're in an accident or something tragic like that, it's usually impossible to unlearn something. We have the knowledge that we have and we carry it around with us. And this knowledge and our experiences shape our opinions about things. I find this to be especially true when it comes to movies. We go into movies with our "cultural baggage" and this can influence how we feel about the film. This can be an issue when viewing an older film, as we can't project ourselves back in time to know what it was like for those who were seeing the movie when it was first released. This was exactly the kind of roadblock that I hit when watching Straw Dogs.

American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) has moved with his wife Amy (Susan George) back to her hometown in Scotland. David was willing to leave the United States due to all of the turmoil surrounded the Vietnam War. He and Amy have bought an old farmhouse and they are having repairs done on it. The workers, Charlie (Del Henney), Scutt (Ken Hutchison), and Chris (Jim Norton), all know Amy from the past and are constantly ogling her. The locals at the pub, especially Tom (Peter Vaughan), bristle when Tom enters. When Amy's cat is killed, David begins to understand that the locals are dangerous. This leads to escalating tension when then leads to violence.

For years, I've seen Straw Dogs mentioned in reference books and it's always been accompanied by words like "violent", "shocking", "controversial", and "banned". So, based on this, I went into the movie with a certain set of expectations. Also, the movie came out forty years ago and I've seen many movies which came since that time which have similar stories.

That aside, I'd assumed that the movie would have a bleak tone -- sometimes movies like gain a reputation because they are a depressing experience. But, Straw Dogs doesn't have that either. For the most part, outside of the rape scene and the finale, the mood is oddly neutral, even jovial at times. The scenes in the pub offer some tension, but otherwise, it's just bland. During the finale, there's a moment involving two tricycles that looks like something out of Benny Hill. This really makes the tone questionable. The real source of tension here is the odd relationship between David and Amy. He is constantly belittling her and she acts like a petulant child. This is so blatant that the two of them actually discuss it at one point. So, instead of worrying about violent locals, I kept asking, "Why are these two together?" Amy flaunts her sexuality to everyone, going braless most of the time, and this, and her behavior during the rape, make the audience question her seriousness about her marriage.

By 1971, Sam Peckinpah was an established and experienced director, so I was surprised by how the movie meandered through its two hours. Knowing what I did about the movie, I had expected the bulk of the running time to have encounters between David and the locals which would then lead to an explosion of violence during the finale. But, this isn't the case, as we get scene after scene of things have nothing to do with that part of the story. Actually, if you really watch the movie, you'll see that it doesn't make any sense. Throughout the movie, we see Henry Niles (David Warner), who is portrayed as a village idiot-type. He becomes the crux of the disagreement during the third act and it makes no logical sense. Also, David is unaware of the bad things that the locals have done. So, his turn to violence doesn't feel realistic. I like the idea that this man had run from the violence in his native land and was forced to become violent after being pushed too far, but that's not what happens in this movie. If anything, he should have turned on Amy. Was Peckinpah trying to say that violence never makes sense? I don't know, but I know that the movie didn't make any sense.

The reason that Straw Dogs is coming to Blu-ray Disc now is that the remake hits theaters very soon. I obviously haven't seen this new version yet, but I already have a problem with it. James Marsden is cast in the role of David and, as we've seen him play a superhero, it's going to be difficult to buy him in that role, unless they've changed the story a lot (and let's hope that they have). Straw Dogs is a bad movie, but the one thing that it got right was the casting of Dustin Hoffman. Otherwise, viewers today will find a slow, awkward movie which isn't shocking or even coherent.

Straw Dogs never told me what that title means on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 37 Mbps. The image is fairly sharp and clear, showing only a slight amount of grain at times, and no defects from the source material. While a nice print was clearly used for this transfer, it can't escape the fact that this looks like an old movie. The image is flat and colors are dull. The level of detail is fairly good and there is a certain crispness to the image, but I wasn't overwhelmed. On the plus side, the image is never overly dark or bright. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.9 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. Like many films of this nature, this sounds like a mono track which has been re-tooled into a faux 5.1 track. The dialogue and music sound fine, but there's not much in the way of other dynamic effects. The gunshots have some presence, but otherwise, don't expect this to sound like the latest blockbuster.

The only extras on the Straw Dogs Blu-ray Disc are three TV SPOTS and the THEATRICAL TRAILER for the film.