Aggressively antagonistic, repugnant and foul...just what Tarantino's fans have come to expect and welcome

Rating: 4/10 (1 January 2017)

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino's "8th film", as it states in the credits, is aggressively antagonistic, assaultive, repugnant and foul-mouthed...still, this is some people's idea of a good time. Bounty hunter transporting female murderer through Wyoming blizzard by stagecoach in the post-Civil War years picks up two passengers on his way to Red Rock: black bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren, who is traveling with three dead bounties of his own, and Red Rock's new sheriff. They end up snowbound at a way-station with a motley group of lodgers, including a hangman, a cowboy and a former Confederate general. Tarantino, whose script was reportedly inspired by John Carpenter's 1982 splatter-in-the-snow opus "The Thing" (which, in turn, appeared to be inspired by Ridley Scott's "Alien" from 1979), does employ a few gross-out effects (spurting blood and nasty vomiting shots), yet the personality conflicts of the travelers are actually more disgusting (forget caring about any of these horrible people, the only interest they elicit is due to the strong ensemble acting, not the writing). Tarantino's belligerent sense of humor rears its head on occasion (and, in this story's context, is welcomed), though the film's 182-minute running time is self-defeating, particularly with a "Chapter Five" prologue clocking in late at the two-hour mark. Robert Richardson's excellent cinematography keeps the film visually interesting (which is imperative, particularly since we're snowbound in a cabin for a hellishly long stretch), but Ennio Morricone's ominous score misses the mark. ** from ****