Sam gr8ful to get 8...

Rating: 8/10 (4 January 2016)

The trailer sold me on this one and I went in expecting exactly what I got, so no complaints on that score (which I've scored an 8, ironically). With THE H8FUL EIGHT, the '70s-centric Tarantino penetrates still deeper into the Man on Man Love that characterized both PULP FICTION and DJANGO UNCHAINED- this time around, Sam Jackson getting his dirty dingus 8 on The Down Low (and appearing most gr8ful, too). The similarities to John Carpenter's version of THE THING, from the stringing of a line to the outdoor outhouse to Morricone's reprisal of the theme therefrom itself, are nice touches (Tarantino once cited Carpenter's classic ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 as his favorite film, and it's nice to see he still pays homage to his heroes). Going in, I expected this one to more closely resemble THE BLACK TAVERN (a Martial Arts Masterpiece from The Golden Age of Martial Arts Movies, the 1970s), which tells the tale of a group of cutthroats who gather at a snow-bound tavern to intercept an official said to be lugging around a fortune in bribes only to discover that THEY are the targets of a young woman (the beautiful Shih Szu), who has spread the misinformation to sucker them all to the tavern where she can kill them. (Another thing that prompts this observation: the scene involving "fresh stew" and the disappearance of a number of bodies... In THE BLACK TAVERN, we actually SEE the cook butchering bodies in a back room while preparing meals...) THE H8FUL EIGHT lags a bit (with a running time of nearly 3 hours, it could've been trimmed by at least 60 minutes with none the wiser), but one can attribute that to the built-in ponderousness of the Indie Movement from which Tarantino and Company sprang (they may not have a LOT to say, but they're going to say it at Great Length, regardless), keeping in mind, too, that Tarantino is a product of '70s cinema-going and seems to delight in remaking at greater VOLUME what has gone before. Best line: "The Yankees say it's a Free Country."