"The Thing" + "Reservoir Dogs" + "Clue" + "Django Unchained" = "The Hateful Eight"

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2016)

Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated "The Hateful Eight" further augments the director's portfolio of transgressive, innovative, and influential filmmaking. He successfully enhances the quality of his film with the use of the 70mm extended edition featuring an overture and intermission. Tarantino pays homage to the epics of the 50's and 60's with this long forgotten film technique. It pays off very well because it provides the viewer with more of an experience rather than just an ordinary watch.
"The Hateful Eight" is a film that is highly influenced by other films. It features the same atmosphere and tension of "The Thing", the talky ultraviolent stage play of "Reservoir Dogs," the whodunit mystery of "Clue," and finally the setting, genre, and vengeful mood of "Django Unchained." QT masterfully creates well rounded nefarious characters in an enclosed environment. The characters are brought to life by phenomenal performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, and Jennifer Jason Leigh -- who was the only person to get an Oscar nod. These performances were guided by QT's extraordinary writing. Also the score was excellent from legendary composer Ennio Morricone, and really made rather slow moments more suspenseful. Finally the cinematography was great and almost matched "The Revenant" in artistic beauty.
The main complaints about the film from critics are that the film is overlong with excessive dialogue, excessive violence, and finally an absence of character morals. The dialogue did drag on especially in the first half but it was all made worth while in the second half with the violent interplay between characters, the gut twisting climax, and finally the jaw dropping monologues QT is known for. The film is incredibly violent but it helps set the hateful and brutal tone of the film. Finally the characters are mostly despicable, and lack morals. But how many movies actually have a 'bad guys vs. less bad guys' storyline? Like seriously this is the core of the movie -- the characters are hateful! It's called "The Hateful Eight" for a reason and the characters certainly are not sugarcoated or lionized in any way.
Overall this film is another brutal and highly entertaining masterpiece from Quentin Tarantino.