First Looks… Second Thoughts: The Hateful Eight

The trailer for The Hateful Eight is the most exciting trailer I have seen since Mad Max: Fury Road. I will admit that I am in the full throes of super hero franchise fatigue and am ambivalent about ninety percent of the movies that receive a wide release in theaters.

I cannot wait to see this movie.

The Hateful Eight looks like it will be an excellent companion piece to Django Unchained, and it features nearly every actor I want to see in a film, though I was crossing my fingers to see Jeff Bridges, Sam Elliott, or Ian McShane. Shooting the whole thing in Panavision makes up for the lack of my dream cast. It’s an inspired choice that will hopefully be appreciated by the audience.

The trailer also solidifies my opinion that Tarantino is just making movies he wants to see; I’m glad we have similar tastes.

— Mike Burr

So I just watched the “Official Teaser Trailer” for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming The Hateful Eight and, yeah, it got my attention. But as I watched the thing, my brain started to get flooded with all sorts of random cultural references and, as what happens when you succumb to the anxiety of influences, I started to have a hard time telling the difference between what I was actually watching and what I thought it reminded me of.

And it reminded me of a lot of things.

I mean the obvious one is that there is a sort of classic Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction vibe going on here, you know, with the ensemble cast and, of course, the Samuel L. Jackson cool guy monologue thing. But then you got Kurt Russell in a snow storm telling us that “one of them fellas is NOT what he says he is” and I go all John Carpenter’s The Thing in my noggin and start to wonder if there will indeed be some sort of alien nastiness going on, which then makes me think about 2011’s Cowboys & Aliens staring Daniel Craig, and who the hell wants to think about that?  Then, of course, towards the end of the trailer when there is that juxtaposition between a snowstorm on the prairie and the Eight Strangers/One Deadly Connection captions go up, I start mentally thumbing through the pages of Stephen Crane’s The Blue Hotel. But that’s just pretentious, isn’t it, and reveals more about me than this trailer, I guess.

All this gets me wondering if this why they call these things “Teaser Trailers”? Is it because they tease you into thinking about all the things that this movie could be? Or is it simply to tease you into wanting to be teased some more before you decided to commit? Whatever. I’m in. Whoever put this teaser trailer together earned their salary today because I’m definitely… um… teased and, by golly, I want more.

— Daniel Elkin

The opening seconds of The Hateful Eight had me twitching in anticipation like a child on Xmas morning.  This looks like the Tarantino film I’ve been waiting on since Inglorious Basterds.  To be honest, I felt a little let down by Django.  I’m a huge fan of classic Italian westerns, not to mention the iconic Django, and I thought Quentin’s take was a little uneven.  After watching a few more times, I’ve learned to appreciate it more, but I still pine for the days of QT films like Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill.  Enter, The Hateful Eight.  I’m so excited I can’t even put my thoughts down in an organized coherent way.  So, here’s what I was thinking as I watched the trailer.

*Kurt Russell!  Jack Burton!  The Thing!  YAY!!!!

*Sam Jackson!  And Kurt Russell!  And Tarantino!  (brain explodes)

*Tim Roth!  AND Michael Madson!  Together again!  (whole head explodes)

*That guy from Justified!  (pause).  That’s cool.

In a nutshell, this looks like the same type of character driven, action/drama that QT gave us with Reservoir Dogs.  A repertory of his favorite actors from past films, locked together in single room for three days.  In the hands of Quentin, this will likely be a Mad Hatter party of biblical scale.

This will be my Xmas gift to myself this year.  If this film disappoints, I may swear off going to the movies altogether.

Bring it on!!!!!!

— Ben Goldman

Well, it’s about time Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tarantino got together. Daisy Domergue signals perfection! And Kurt Russell hasn’t looked so good in ages. Not sure about the Tim Roth element, but Joe Gage is a hilarious name for the Michael Madsen role.

— Shawn Hill

To paraphrase Bret from Flight of the Conchords, “I want to tell this trailer how hot it is, but it’ll think I’m sexist. It’s so hot it’s making me sexist.”

While that doesn’t quite make sense, I think the meaning is clear. Wait, what?

70 mm Ultra Panavision 70. Holy fucking shit. Of course I live in a place where I won’t get to fully experience this, but I might be up for a road trip. There’s just so much to see in every shot it’s simply glorious. Gloriously beautiful. See? It’s MAKING me sexist.

In each one of those amazing exterior shots, you could practically have two films going at the same time, side-by-side in that visual space. Is it masturbatory? It sure as shit is. But it’s masturbatory in the same way that the greatest, most excessive art in history is masturbatory.

By which I mean, it’s really good masturbation. Like, spiritual, even.

A cast to die for. Facial hair to die for. Fur clothing to die for.

And the apparently never-aging Jennifer Jason Leigh as a murderous loon.

I couldn’t ask for anything better for Christmas.

— Paul Brian McCoy

I have to admit, it’s H8ful Eight‘s cast, more than anything else, that makes me salivate. Not only the actors chosen, but the parts they were given, seem like an excellent combination of “safe” and… well, actually, just mostly safe. Nonetheless, safe looks like it may be the best bet for a film that otherwise seems a bit formless thus far. While Tarantino’s traditional writing charm appears to glimmer through, not quite enough is shown or told for me to really go “whoa! I wanna see that!”

Quality is all anyone can ask for. The sets and costumes look great, the characterization looks quickly apparent, but aside from the basic premise I’m still not sure what to expect from this one. I’ll reserve judgment until the next trailer inevitably comes out and shows us a little more of the film — in the meantime, it looks good, but not enough to make me start counting the minutes ’til Christmas. I’m already doing that for The Force Awakens so honestly, yeesh Tarantino, ambitious much?

— Lexi Wolfe