For those of you that know me, I’ve been waiting. I’ve been waiting a long time for this film; after the fiasco of the script leak, and holding my breath at Tarantino’s refusal to  make the film I was over the moon when the posters went up at work for ‘The Hateful Eight’. A little context is likely to be useful here, ‘The Hateful Eight’ is a Western set just after the American Civil war. To explain the atmosphere this has left the US in, ‘racial tension’ simply doesn’t cut it. Masterfully shown by Tarantino through the dynamic between Samuel L. Jackson’s Major Marquis Warren, a famed bounty hunter and Bruce Dern’s General Sandy Smithers, who fought on opposite sides of the Civil war, with the sorts of racial slurs we grew accustomed to in ‘Django Unchained’. This tension, mixed with the dark humour of Quentin Tarantino results in a journey of nervousness and fear, punctuated regularly enough by feel-bad-for-laughing-laughter to keep the tone in an excruciatingly good place.

 

In terms of set and cinematography Tarantino has never been one for convention, filming (and fighting for) an original 70mm celluloid film he creates a sense of history and other-timely-ness (I know I’m making up a few words here, but cut me some slack) which filming digitally would simply be unable to capture. Similarly, going against his own trends, Tarantino elected for a totally original soundtrack, rather than a licensed one; composed by the fantastic Ennio Morricone, who won a Golden Globe for his efforts. The impact of this upon the film is a menacing soundtrack which perfectly matches the pacing and moods on screen, think of the atmosphere music creates in Alien, but with fewer aliens… But a similar amount of gore.

 

Speaking of gore, you’ll either be horrified or in stitches laughing, depending on whether you’re used to Tarantino’s unarguably excessive use of bloody violence or not. For a film which takes places on only two or three sets and who’s entire cast is only around 15 characters Tarantino throws around an unholy amount of blood. My personal favourite involves a bad cup of coffee (I shan’t spoil anything dear reader).