Quentin Tarantino has compared new western The Hateful Eight to Reservoir Dogs, his brutal and claustrophobic debut from 1992. As the movie’s first official photograph hit the web, the film-maker told Entertainment Weekly that the isolated location and minimal cast meant comparisons would be inevitable.
“For me it has more of a western Iceman Cometh kind of vibe about it,” said Tarantino, referring to John Frankenheimer’s 1973 film based on Eugene O’Neill’s 1939 play set in a low-rent Greenwich village saloon and lodging house. “A bunch of guys in a room who can’t trust each other. That wasn’t a marching order when I sat down to write the script, but pretty quickly I realised this is kind of a nice coming-full-circle.”
Previously, Tarantino has described the film as being inspired by episodes of TV westerns Bonanza, The Virginian and High Chaparral. He told Deadline: “Twice per season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take the lead characters hostage … I don’t like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a western, where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed.
“I thought, ‘What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.’”
Entertainment Weekly’s front cover shot features Samuel L Jackson as Major Marquis Warren, a former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, Kurt Russell as John Ruth, known as the Hangman for his habit of bringing criminals to justice, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, as fugitive Daisy Domergue.
The story reportedly begins in a stagecoach carrying Ruth and Domergue through wintry Wyoming towards the town of Red Rock, where Domergue is due to face trial. Leigh sports a black eye in the shot, while Russell’s handlebar moustache is almost as wide as the veteran actor’s shoulders.
The film’s cast also includes Tarantino favourites Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Walton Goggins, as well as newcomer Demián Bichir. Set a few years after the American civil war, the story eventually settles on an isolated mountainside stagecoach stopover named Minnie’s Haberdashery, where eight grizzled strangers are forced to shelter during a blizzard.
These include Bob (Bichir), who’s taking care of the establishment while Minnie visits her mother; Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), the hangman of Red Rock; confederate general Sanford Smithers (Dern), and cowpuncher Joe Gage (Madsen). Meanwhile, Goggins plays a southern renegade, Chris Mannix, who claims to be Red Rock’s new sheriff.
The Hateful Eight, Tarantino’s followup to hit western Django Unchained, does not yet have a confirmed release date but would be expected to debut in the US towards the end of the year, as the Pulp Fiction film-maker eyes another tilt at the Oscars.
