Deliverance (1972)

DELIVERANCE

(Thriller, Adventure, Drama, 1972) (18) D :  John Boorman W:  James Dickey. 1h 50m. USA.

TAGLINE : Deliverance from Evil.

Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before its turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewish Medlock takes his friends o a river rafting trip they’ll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.

Oh man!! This is one of the more memorable movies from my childhood, although as a kid I used to get the name mixed up with Southern Comfort (1981) and as a teen I always thought there should be some boozy recovery drink called Deliverance… makes sense don’t it!?

Anyway.. This has to be the cult classic city “boy” meets hick movie!?  It certainly one of the more memorable. It’s been sampled and remixed into a ton of music, including my favourite track from Primus. In fact I heard a busker in my town centre playing the banjo song only the other week.

So what’s all the fuss about? A small group of men go out the wilderness to “rough it” and hike up a river that is going to be damned. They encounter a few local people including a great banjo playing hick kid. Now there is one enthusiast among them a outdoor loving Lewis (Burt Reynolds) who knows the theory but doesn’t really understand the practice. The rest of the crew a little more tamer and think more like the common man while Lewis is out to brave the wild, the character reminds me of Pvt Reich from Ravenous (1999). The guys encounter a group of butt loving toothless hicks and hells gates open and everything takes a strange turn.

I don’t wanna give too much away here, as I think everyone should watch films for themselves and make up their own minds about them. But you could argue so many points about the movie.  The struggle between man and nature, city boy and country folk, morals and revenge. I’m sure there have been books written on all the underlying subjects covered in this movie.

 

Q: There are too many quotes in this movie, but my favourite ones all come the hicks “You sure do got a purdy mouth” and “Where you going city boy” “Squeeel piggy” etc etc.

BS : The actual best scene for me in this movie is the end, where the guys JUST WANT TO GO HOME.. while looking back over the area that will be flooded wondering how their lives are going to get back to normal..

The most iconic scenes are the piggy raping scene and the banjo showdown, which I was hoping would inspire Banjo Hero on the PS4 but it didn’t…

R : Southern Comfort (1981) Timber Falls (2007), Devils Bridge (2010)

8/10

Last nights movies 25 .06 .13

It was a pretty busy night.. but not a lot of movie watching.. but what I did watch was very good. Quality not Quantity!!

• The Devils (1971) followed by..
• Viy (1967)

Then I finished the night by watching the end of Snowtown Murders .. which is still actually quite scary and strangely hypnotic.

Anyway it was a great night, two VERY good movies, the first was The Devils (1971) which I had seen before in my teens and attempted to watch the night before but failed totally.. never mind I always get there in the end. Oliver Reed at his best and the wonderfully demented Vanessa Redgrave, beautiful and crazy in love.

Vanessa Redgrave..

Followed by Viy (1971) which was amazing!!! I really loved this movie, I learnt about the Viy story after a friend of a friend did a Viy styled photo-shoot. But it was a very imaginative adaptation of the Nikolai Gogol book. It is a bit dated now, the effects are still quite stunning and in the vein of something you’d exptect from the early 70’s. The style reminded me a little bit of The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967).

gothic style witch from Viy