Straw Dogs
Cinerama Releasing Corporation | Release Date: December 22, 1971 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
One of the most ambiguous, neurotic, and disturbing of all American films. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Straw Dogs is one of Sam Peckinpah's finest films, a relentless study in violence and machismo that is shocking, not only for its explicit gore, but for the degree to which it manipulates "civilized" audiences. Even the most passive viewer may find himself silently cheering on the carnage at the film's climax--an act that, in retrospect, gives much cause for discomfort. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineNick Schager
Sitting through Peckinpah’s controversial classic is not unlike watching a lit fuse make its slow, inexorable way toward its combustible destination—the taut build-up is as shocking and vicious as its fiery conclusion is inevitable. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Though studio interference and his own personal demons hampered his later work, Straw Dogs shows a master in control of his effects, which made an artist of Peckinpah's sensibility an especially dangerous man. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJerry Renshaw
If The Wild Bunch was Peckinpah's most violent film, surely Straw Dogs has to be his coarsest and most intense. Peace and love? Forget it. Read full review
88
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
Straw Dogs has the heat of personal commitment and the authority of deep (if bitter) contemplation. It is also moviemaking of a very high order. Read full review
70
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
Taking elements of both the Western and the British horror film, Peckinpah's masterstroke was to shoot Straw Dogs absolutely straight, without the reassuring signposts of either type of film. Read full review
60
The New YorkerPauline Kael
Despite Peckinpah’s artistry, there’s something basically grim and crude in Straw Dogs. It’s no news that men are capable of violence, but while most of us want to find ways to control that violence, Sam Peckinpah wants us to know that that’s all hypocrisy. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The most offensive thing about the movie is its hypocrisy; it is totally committed to the pornography of violence, but lays on the moral outrage with a shovel. Read full review
50
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Director Sam Peckinpah indulges himself in an orgy of unparalleled violence and nastiness with undertones of sexual repression in this production. Read full review
50
The New York TimesVincent Canby
It is an intelligent movie, but interesting only in the context of his other works. Read full review
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