The Hateful Eight 2015

Binalikan ko ulit ito to give it another chance after rewatching Django Unchained, hoping na magugustuhan ko na siya this time. Unfortunately, ganun pa rin ang feeling ko. Hindi talaga ako fan ng one location setup nito. Nasa isang lugar lang sila, puro dialogue, and for long stretches parang walang nangyayari. Hindi rin ako particularly invested sa mga characters, at honestly hindi rin ako interesado sa saloon vibes. They’re trapped inside, just bickering with each other, and even the accents somehow made it harder for me to connect. Siguro combination ng setting, pacing, at character dynamics kaya hindi nagwowork sa akin. Yes, Tarantino’s theatrical violence is still present. But this time, it feels more like a reunion film where he just crammed as many actors he previously worked with into one room. Parang less about pushing cinema forward and more about indulging himself. I still found myself dozing off. Hindi ko talaga ramdam yung tension, which is surprising given how dialogue driven Tarantino usually excels at suspense. Dito, for me, it just dragged. Pambawi na lang yung nicely shot landscapes. Those wide snowy exteriors are beautiful and cinematic. The film also uses a lot of what looks like deep focus or split focus shots, where both foreground and background subjects remain sharp at the same time. That technical choice adds visual depth, pero hindi siya enough to save my engagement with the story. At the end of the day, violence is still the strongest point of this film. When it hits, it hits. Pero outside of that, The Hateful Eight still doesn’t work for me. It feels indulgent, slow, and emotionally distant, despite its technical strengths.