Southern Comfort [Blu-ray]

Bought for a mate. He loves it.

One of the earlier post Vietnam films,here Vietnam replaced by the swamps of Louisiana.

A group of national Guardsmen get on the wrong side of the local rednecks when two of them get lost in rural countryside they end up being targeted which ends up fighting them both for their lives and survival.A gritty but unforgiving thriller set in the backwoods and swamps of LouisianaPowers Booth plays (Hardin) a tough but conscientious soldier and Keith Carridine (Spencer) the voice of calm within the chaos that surrounds them as the locals show no remorse as they mark them down for death.A film that holds no bars exciting yet morbid which makes you on edge and looking over your shoulderThe music of Ry Cooder is very apt as it personifys the whole backwood feel of the movie.A interesting and great cast that deservesEvery allocade going.

Cult classic. Has stood the test of time.

This is a review of the 2019 Region B2 Blu-ray from Second Sight Films. Regarding comments in other reviews about the quality of this disc, we found the picture good but not as sharp as one might expect on Blu-ray, and the sound OK but not brilliant. This is not a cheap product, so one might expect better.Walter Hill is a California-born screen-writer, director and producer with a long list of films to his credit, largely high-octane Westerns and action movies, such as ‘The Long Riders’(1980) and ‘Extreme Prejudice’(1987). With David Giler, he founded Brandywine Productions, which bought the option on ‘Alien’(1979); Hill and Giler were heavily involved in the screenplays and production of the first 4 Alien films. In 1981, they asked writer Michael Kane to produce a 1st draft of a ‘survival story’ that would be cheap to make, which they then re-wrote; Giler produced, and Hill directed. They chose to make it in Louisiana, which Hill was familiar with.‘Southern Comfort’ (the title was used under an agreement with the drinks manufacturer) is, like the earlier and more famous John Boorman film ‘Deliverance’, a horror-adventure set in the backwoods of rural America. Both are predicated on the collision of urban Americans (ostensibly civilised) arriving in unfamiliar and hostile terrain, with rural back-woodsmen. In fact, this film is an unmistakable allegory relating to the US military’s disastrous mismatch of a war in South East Asia. The film pits a group of 9 Louisiana National Guardsmen, out in the Bayou on exercise, against a shadowy group of local Cajun hunters. For Cajuns, read the Vietcong, shadowy resistance fighters in the jungles and villages of Vietnam.The movie was filmed during December around Caddo Lake, a vast area of wetland on the Texas-Louisiana border. It produces one of the most miserably monochrome vistas of any film I can recall. The characters spend their entire time wet and muddy, and half of it walking or wading in murky water. It must have been a beast to film, for both the actors and the crew.The sheer brutal physicality of the landscape sets the scene admirably for the action. The choreography ~ now you see it, now you don’t ~ is excellent. The suspense is fed by superbly atmospheric music from the musician and songwriter Ry Cooder. And the ensemble cast, many then unknown, enter into the spirit of the action with gusto. Only Keith Carradine was previously well-known, in ‘Nashville’(1975) and ‘The Long Riders’. He and Powers Boothe (who had a distinguished film and TV career, particularly in series such as ‘Deadwood’, ’24’ and ‘Nashville’) are good.This is a nicely creepy film, with a chilly, disturbing feel. It should be watched with a large mug of Hot Chocolate to hand!

I watched this film when first released and thought it was time for a trip down memory lane… Let’s just say, it’s not stood the test of time. Poor sound quality, grainy imagery and a weak story line. Deliverance, it isn’t.

This was the second time I'd seen Southern Comfort. The first will have been three or four years after it came out when I saw it with friends on rented video.Despite remembering bits of it and the basic premise I still found watching it this time around was a gripping experience. Perhaps, the picking off of individuals in a group has now been overdone but Walter Hill works the tension well as he had in 'Warriors' but this is the better film. The strange thing about this film is that you ended up wanting the victims to survive even though they are the aggressors and at least half of them not very nice or not very intelligent people.Without the use of special effects or resorting to a lot of blood lust the story keeps you on the edge of your seat and the characters are believable whether they are strong, weak, stoic or stupid.A film that you can watch again. I think I probably need to watch 'Deliverance' again now as I remember the two films being similar and both very good.