Straw Dogs

Straw Dogs

An unpopular war in Vietnam polarized America in 1971. College campuses were rocked by demonstrations. Hippies and pacifists flashed peace signs, but there was no peace. During that turbulence, Hollywood legend Sam Peckinpah gave the nation a deeply disturbing movie. Straw Dogs was so brutal that forty years later it was still banned in the United Kingdom. It created a firestorm of controversy in America. That’s exactly what Peckinpah wanted.

Straw Dogs is about an American college professor, Dr. David Summers, who runs away from the violence in his land. He moves with his British wife, Amy, to an old farmhouse in the English countryside. Summers is a pacifist who will go to any length to avoid confrontation. His unfulfilled wife abhors his weakness.

The professor hires several lads from the local pub to fix the roof on the farmhouse. Ignored by a husband hiding in his study, Amy prances around half naked, flirting shamelessly while the roofers drag out their repair job. David knows they are taking advantage of him but refuses to confront them. He sees the growing magnetism between his wife and one of the lads but retreats into the safe world of complex math equations. The bullyboys laugh behind his back, and Amy despises him all the more.

Emboldened by Amy’s flirting and David’s passivity, the lads slaughter a cat, hang it in her closet, and then giggle while Amy screams hysterically. They lure David away while one of them rapes his wife. Amy keeps her rape a secret, yet seethes in bitterness when her husband ignores her bruises and tears.

Events spin out of control. The village boys come in the dark of night to finish off the couple. The professor knows that his pacifism will not survive a night of terror. He somehow discovers his courage. While his wife cowers, he frantically runs from room to room trying to lock doors and board up windows. But there are too many openings. Someone breaks through the attic. Others come up through the cellar. David desperately fires a shotgun at one and swings an ax at another. Gore and carnage are everywhere, but he fights on in a frenzy until all the attackers have fled or been killed. Exhausted and covered with blood, the former pacifist whispers, “I will not allow violence against this house.”

Sam Peckinpah posed hard questions to an America wrestling with Vietnam. Can pacifism stand in the face of evil? Will wickedness go away if ignored? If war isn’t waged against evil when it is small, will we face an inescapable fight to the death when it grows into a monster? Straw Dogs is an allegory of spiritual warfare. We flirt with evil, thinking that we can charm the snake. Like Amy, we are caught by surprise when our pet becomes a predator. Or, like the professor, we passively sit by and allow evil to worm its way into our homes and seduce our loved ones. We shouldn’t forget the story of a professor and his wife. They would probably agree with this truth:

The only way for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.

Luke 10:19