Quentin Tarantino will be bringing his latest violence soaked epic, The Hateful Eight, home on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 29. The film made quite the splash when it landed in theaters this past December (it even made our top 15 or 2015) and now that it has arrived on home video, look for the writer-director’s legend to only grow.
After delivering a western with his last effort, Django Unchained, it appears that the revered filmmaker has found a genre he adores as he visited that well again for The Hateful Eight. The film takes place in the years after the Civil War and follows a bounty hunter, John Ruth — aka The Hangman (Kurt Russell) who is bringing the fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to… you guessed it, hang, in Red Rock. The only thing is, a potentially deadly winter storm is beating them to the fateful city. So, after picking up a stranded on the road Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), they are forced to stop for the night (or more) at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass.
There, they meet quite the cast of characters and as we quickly find out, it appears not everyone is exactly who they say they are and that proves to be quite a dangerous proposition for Ruth, and also Warren.
Walton Goggins portrays Chris Mannix, a southern outlaw who claims that he is on the way to Red Rock himself to take on the role of the town’s new lawman. Bob (Demian Bichir) is a mysterious Mexican who claims to be watching the Haberdashery for Minnie. Tim Roth’s Oswaldo Mobray is there too, and he just happens to be the new hangman of Red Rock. Sitting quietly, which makes everyone nervous, is Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). What’s an officer of the Confederate army doing all the way up in the Rocky Mountains? Then, there’s a cow-puncher named Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), who’s silent but deadly demeanor gets under Ruth’s skin in the biggest of ways.
There seems to be a whole lot of coincidence that appears to have all become stranded at the same moment in this fortress from the weather that is anything but peaceful on the inside, due to all the boiling tension. Although he has no choice, due to the weather outside, this is far from the ideal situation for a bounty hunter bringing in someone to hang who’s worth $10,000 dead or alive.
As we stated in our theatrical The Hateful Eight review, we adored this picture and believe that it is a must-own to have for your collection if you’re a Tarantino fan or an appreciator of greatly crafted cinema. Adding to the excellence is the score by cinematic score legend Ennio Morricone, who finally scored an Academy Award for his work on The Hateful Eight.
What is so special about the Ultra Panavision 70 is that is a rare format for filmmaking and what home video connoisseurs should know about it as it makes it way home onto the (somewhat) smaller screens is that the anamorphic camera lenses capture images at an incredible aspect ratio, which provides the viewer (even at home) a much wider and rich image.
When it comes to bonus features for The Hateful Eight, there is not much, which is sad considering the auteur’s background in the home video business, albeit decades ago. If he got his film school education watching others do their thing, it would have at least been nice to have a commentary track from Tarantino. But, alas, that or any making-of featurette is not to be found.
What is found is Beyond the Eight: A Behind the Scenes Look, an all-too short (just shy of five minutes) series of interviews from the cast and Tarantino, talking about the making of the movie. It does not add too much to the creative process that went into making the film, but perhaps that is exactly how QT wants it. This is a filmmaker whose experience with The Hateful Eight has been marred in meddling. There was the website that published his script, that in turn had him cancelling the film altogether. Then, when he did decide to make it, because it was too fantastic of a story for him to let go of, the filmmaking process was shrouded in mystery. And rightfully so, for a man who had just been burned by the press.
What would have been a nice addition is a video of that theatrical table read that QT directed featuring much of the people who would wind up being in the cast. Alas, that is not to be either.
But what turns out to be the best bonus featurette on the entire The Hateful Eight Blu-Ray is the Samuel L. Jackson narrated Sam Jackson’s Guide to Glorious 70mm. One of the most fantastic treats about seeing this film in the theaters was witnessing it in 70mm, as Tarantino had shot it. Jackson gives us a tour of the making of the film in that cinematic dynamic that harks back to another era where filmmakers such as John Huston and John Ford utilized the 70mm format to create rich, and complex textures for their films. Although on home video it is not quite the same, the vastness of what Tarantino shot, still remains.
Film: A
Bonus Features: B-