I sort of knew where this was going, I've seen South Park. I've seen George Lucas rape Indiana Jones. But that happened fairly early on thankfully, so i was still granted the air of tension and dread for the remainder. I must admit, i thought this would have been more traumatic, more brutal, edgy. In a way i'm glad. In a way, not. This film clearly strikes others more than it did me. More so a film about the pride of man than the brutality of it. Desensitized. Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything.

"You ever had your balls cut off you fucking ape?"

File under 'Horror'.

The fact that this is beautifully filmed by John Boorman, and set in stunning surroundings, just makes the violence and darkness even more disturbing.

A MUST WATCH.

Hollywood with it's filthy lies. Pigs don't sound like that at all. Especially not when you fuck them.

Until this week, I’d only ever seen clips of Deliverance. Hell, I could even play part of the duelling banjos song on my guitar despite never having watched the whole of the film!

Now that I have seen it, a number of long-standing cultural references towards it that may have gone over my head before have started to make a lot of sense. It is so influential on other survival films.

I love Burt Reynolds anyway, and even without his moustache, he was still awesome here. He has all the best lines, looks the most bad-ass and has probably the most interesting character too. Although John Voight may have something to say about that; he also has a very interesting character.

There’s a lot that makes this film memorable, from the “skweeee” scene, to the fantastic soundtrack. Don’t be like me. If you get the chance to watch Deliverance, do it!

"Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything."

Oh Satan, it must have been 100 years since I saw it the last time. Most of the story was totally wiped out from my memory. Especially the last half hour. But it became a much better movie with this material I'd forgotten ;) What comes to mind now is the slightly cheesy acting from Reynolds (still good, but still... cheesy), but also the change his characters make - from a macho-bullshitter to a whining child. Something that becomes even more clear on the blu-ray is the terrible day-for-night shots. Anyway, brilliant movie.

I cannot even tell you how much I enjoyed this movie through the first act. It's an example of man struggling against nature and the thought processes involved in their decision making. The characters are both believable and well acted. The problem arrives with the hillbilly rapists that show up and ruin the trip. The film seems to teeter back and forth between a man vs. wild scenario and a terrifying backwoods survival horror movie--ultimately concluding with the survivors trying to escape and get away with the crimes they have committed. If it had just stuck with a main theme, then it could have been great. Unfortunately, the story was jumbled and it did not flow very well at all.

I think I maybe had some problems with the ending of this one? I'm not sure, honestly, because if nothing else it does contain a few extremely memorable scenes. It's also nice to see something and be reminded of why Burt Reynolds was such a huge star at the time.

This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

'Let's just wait and see what comes out of the river...' Forty-odd years on, Deliverance has lost nothing of it's raw power, still blowing most of today's CGI spectacles right out of the water. Banjo music has never sounded so sinister.

Hollywood with it's filthy lies. Pigs don't sound like that at all. Especially not when you fuck them.