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As a Frenchman I've long been fascinated with Cajun culture, surviving against all odds, so when I learned "Southern Comfort" was like "Deliverance" with Cajuns I figured it had to be fun and that I should check it out. I wasn't disappointed.

The plot is pretty simple. A National Guard squad gets stranded in Cajun country swamps, and are victim to attacks from the locals who consider that it's their land, and the film predictably proceeds in having the soldiers killed one at a time while they also destroy each-other because of their increasing paranoia.

The score and cinematography are great, as is the acting. However I must say that ultimately most of the movie with the soldiers stranded in the swamps isn't as intense as it could have been. It's surely entertaining, but pretty basic, and for that only I would have given "Southern Comfort" a 7. However, the last 20 minutes of the movie are absolutely fantastic, elevating the film to something highly satisfying. I don't want to spoil anything, and anyway I probably couldn't accurately describe how superbly cut the climatic ending of "Southern Comfort" is. If most of the film is just above average, the ending makes sitting through it even more worthwhile, as it all builds up to those last scenes.

The theme of the film obviously borrows from the Vietnam war, and the film itself inspired later films. Just a little trivia for you, I actually first learned about "Southern Comfort" from reading about the film "Aliens". "Southern Comfort" producer David Giler convinced the studio to make an "Alien" sequel by making the sequel like "Southern Comfort" in space. And it's true that "Aliens" does have a similar Vietnam war theme.

Anyway, "Southern Comfort" is a good 80s film which truly did remind me of "Deliverance", so if you liked that film, you will like this one too. Recommended.

A group of National Guardsmen led by Hardin(Powers Boothe)and Spencer(Keith Carradine)get on the bad side of swamp-dwelling Cajuns while conducting maneuvers in the bayou.Bloodshed ensues.Hardin and Spencer must then go on the run through the Louisiana swamps if they're to survive.This violent and exciting survival thriller owes a lot to John Boorman's fantastic "Deliverance".Walter Hill does a fine job of showing how an area as large as a bayou can be claustrophobic and the ultra-intense finale shows some top-notch editing.The acting is great and the script raises some serious questions about the behaviour of man."Southern Comfort" can also be seen as an allegorical treatment of the Vietnam conflict.8 out of 10.A must-see!

I just saw this film for the first time recently and I keep watching it over and over before I have to return it. I wasn't expecting such a great film. I agree with the Vietnam metaphor, but it was lighter fare being set in the Louisiana Bayou. There was never a dull moment and there was just the right amount of humor between the tension. The cast was great, most of the acting was very believable. It was surely one of Powers Boothe's best performances. One reason I enjoy it so much is because there isn't a lot of high-tech special effects. The bear-traps are quite effective. Also in the very tense last 20 minutes, there's blood & guts and it's real blood & guts. I was very creeped out when Hardin looks out a window and sees hangmen nooses being strung up. I'm affected every time. He can say more with his eyes than most people can with their mouth. His brooding intensity playing off of Carradine's lightness was perfect. Fred Ward was great too. I have not one bad thing to say about this movie and it's incorrect to say it is anti-Cajun. It's message was respect the natives. Sometimes we don't do that. I lived near quite a few National Guardsmen in Oregon, and, yes, the movie was believable in relation to them.

An unit of National Guardsmen commanded by officer(Peter Coyote) and various soldiers(Boothe, Carradine,Fred Ward,TK Carter,Carlos Brown among others)find on weekend exercises in the swamps of Louisiana. But the maneuvers go wrong but they are marked for death when steal canoes to the local Cajuns and run afoul from the hillbillies, though one of them is trapped(Brion James). Without ammunition and in a strange and moody landscape they're surrounded by numerous dangers and risks.

This is an exciting movie containing warlike action, spectacular shootouts, disturbing thriller, and lots of violence and blood. It's an entertaining movie for action lovers and the events are happening are a parable about the Vietnam experience. Magnificent duo protagonist: Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine and enjoyable secondary casting. Excellent musical score by Ry Cooder, Hill's usual(Long riders,Crossroads,Johnny Handsome)with folk melodies. Atmospheric, appropriate cinematography by the great cameraman Andrew Laszlo(Warriors,Steets of fire). The film is well directed by Walter Hill(Hard Times,Will Bill). Hill's skillful direction is assured and firm and occasionally quite inspired . This movie was followed, by his biggest hit to date, ¨ 48 hours¨ and with a sequel¨ Another 48 hours¨ . Since then, his movies have not made huge amounts at the box-office, though the best of them ¨ Streets of fire,Extreme prejudice,Geronimo¨ retain a certain primitive drive strangely to be found elsewhere . Rating : Good and well worth watching.

Thank the heavens for John Boorman! If it hadn't been for his classic "Deliverance", we never would have had the stream of gritty and relentless "Backwoods" action & horror movies. Most of them are just a cheap excuse to make fun of stereotypical rednecks and depict gratuitous violence, but some are truly great films that come damn near to the quality level of "Deliverance" itself, like Walter Hill's "Southern Comfort". This exhilarating backwoods survival chiller uses some of the best exterior filming locations ever, the suspense and atmosphere of madness gradually builds itself up, the (almost) all-star cast is terrific and the violence is extremely rough at times. A nine-headed squadron of the Louisiana National Guard enrolls into a training practice in the Cajun Swamps and soon get lost. They borrow three canoes of the local population without asking and when one of the soldiers playfully (but stupidly) fires off blanks in their direction, the unseen Cajuns hillbilly-poachers respond with real bullets. This inflicts a disturbing cat and mouse game between the soldiers (with minimal ammunition and no knowledge of the area) and the seemingly invisible Cajuns (with their primitive hunting instincts and inventive booby traps). Usually in this type of flicks, it's obvious to choose which side you're on, but in "Southern Comfort" you have to think at least twice. The soldiers aren't exactly warm and friendly men, neither, and you're more than often tempted to think they're somewhat responsible for the mess they're in. After all, they did steal the canoes, they did set fire to one of the Cajun's homes and they did yell obscure things at them! The finale, set in an actual Cajun community, is truly nail-biting, absorbing and strangely educational, what with all the portrayal of typical rituals like dance parties and barbecuing! Another masterful period accomplishment from Walter Hill, who also made the brilliant cult classic "The Warriors" and the family-western "The Long Riders".

It is one of my personal favorite best war movies of all time and favorite from been a hunted to become a hunter. I love, love this movie to death. I love the setting that it was filmed in the forest and in the swamps. The soldiers got lost and are now hunted from Cajuns. Because they stole their canoes and a soldier for a joke fired at them with blank bullets, but Cajuns returned fire and kill on of the soldiers. The other eight soldiers are now hunted on enemy turf, without live animation, compass, and the map they lost they must fight for survival. Walter Hill directed perfectly this film. "The thrill of the hunt is the ultimate drug" - the line is from Hard Target it is still a thrill film an edge on your seat.

This is my childhood movie, I grew up watching it today I still love this movie today and I have purchased the Blu-ray disc and I watch it so many times on VHS tape. I think the acting performance from all the actors was decent. I love the music score by Ry Cooder I think it is very beautiful. What can I say? I love this movie to death I always enjoy watching this movie. I watched in Thursday this movie with my dad and even he enjoyed this movie just like I did. He said he loves this movie just like me.

Squad of nine Louisiana National Guard soldiers are Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, T. K. Carter, Lewis Smith , Les Lannom, Peter Coyote and Alan Autry and they are believable. Powers Boothe and Franklyn Seales both really died in real life and are sadly no longer with us anymore. I am written this cause I love this movie to death and no one talks about it. Like this movie doesn't exit. I am a huge fan of this film.

I have been an enthusiastic fan of Walter Hill's 1981 film, Southern Comfort, since childhood, and I believe that it is one of the most perfect movies of that decade in terms of its ability to maintain intensity to a nail-biting conclusion. A lot has been written about this film as an allegory for the war in Vietnam, but I prefer simply to take Southern Comfort at face value as a brilliant horror story.

When a squad of nine National Guardsmen antagonize some reclusive Cajuns in the bayous of Louisiana, they find themselves fighting for their lives in drab swamp setting that is presented as a villain in its own right. They are on enemy territory crossing through swamps without any real ammunition, their compass and the map they lost in the swamp alone and tired the hunt is on in this game for survival.

Unlike contemporary survival horror movies where one never gets the impression that the characters are actually outdoors at any point in the film, Southern Comfort is rugged to an extreme, with the actors constantly wading ankle-deep through swamp lands in the middle of winter, since filmmakers quickly determined that the filming location would be too hazardous during the summer season. For most of the film, the Cajun hunters are depicted as terrifyingly wraith like figures that are only seen in split-second glimpses through the trees. This movie has some of the most harrowing death scenes that I have ever witnessed on screen, by way of gunshots to the head, horrific booby traps, and, most notably, an unset ting sequence where a character disappears in quicksand that is subsequently shown in a serene shot as though nothing happened. A beautifully atmospheric Ry Cooder soundtrack works wonders to bring the viewer into the bayou.

Just when the viewer thinks that the most tense moments of Southern Comfort have come to pass, the film ratchets up the unnerving horror with a conclusion that feeds on paranoia in a crowded setting. A few key visuals, namely two rope nooses being thrown over a support beam and a pig slaughter, are strikingly effective in a way that recalls the best of Universal Horror films or German expressionism, while the faces of strangers gets under the skin in a way that recalls movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Through it all, Southern Comfort presents us with memorable characters by way of convincing "lived-in" dialogue and tough guy archetypes that may or may not snap in the face of danger. It's easy to buy the notion that the nine Guardsmen are real people who have known one another for a long time, but simply tolerate one another's company during monthly weekend training exercises. The authenticity of these interactions is the strength that sold the premise to me when I first saw this movie on a cable channel almost 30 years ago.

R.I.P. Franklyn Seales (1952-1990) and Powers Boothe (1948-2017) you are both really missed.

Southern Comfort is a 1981 American action/thriller film directed by Walter Hill and written by Michael Kane, and Hill and his longtime collaborator David Giler. It stars Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, T. K. Carter, Franklyn Seales, and Peter Coyote.

10/10 Bad Ass Seal Of Approval my favorite childhood movie from Walter Hill of all time a really masterpiece classic they don't make movie like this anymore.

Now this is a atmospheric survival action film and Walter Hill at his peak. Love it! It's so simple (although streaming through it is a biting allegory about the Vietnam War), but nonetheless exhilarating, tense and raw film-making. Sure the acting and dialogues aren't master-class, but however they're commendably pulled off. In which case Powers Boothe (whose booming voice takes charge) and Keith Carradine (excellently pitched as the guy of reasoning) are terrific leads, and the support Fred Ward (a memorably hot-head and tooting turn), T.K Carter, Lewis Smith, Franklyn Seales, Peter Coyote and Brion James are also quite compelling. Tough, authentic and a real sense of claustrophobic tension stems from the actor's rapport and cynical script. This blends well with the brutal bloody violence (like the barnstorming climax with the powerful freeze frame closing) and the dank, devouring swamp terrain that ultimately swallows them up. But where I think it's at its most effective is during the interludes of Ry Cooder's fascinatingly folksy music score. Each time it creeps in, it demonstrates the right illustrations to the striking visuals and harrowing moods. Cooder's handling is multi-layered and truly echoing. From a relaxing southern flavour, to a haunting stillness and a punishing sting. It's cohesively perfect in it's random shifts. Hill's bravura direction holds up tautly, as the well-used slow motion is suitably done and the highly measured suspense piercingly infused. I liked how the hunters are kept as void-like background figures, because towards the end it makes the whole paranoid feeling and unease thrillingly justified.

Civilization vs. Nature rules. Or a powerful metaphor of Vietnam War a decade earlier. Most of all a film with great tension (that includes the Ry Cooder music themes) with good characterizations (especially that of Powers Booth as the Texan guy and Keith Carradine's in his last appearance in a above average film) from an "auteur" of the American Film Industry (Walter Hill in one of his best films among with "The Warriors" and "48th Hours") about the routine exercise of National Guardsmen in a swamp and the fatal battle with the local Cajuns. Nature's revenge in a strange way as in the familiar "Deliverance". Highly recommended

I endured this film the other night. The experience was pointless, truly one of those films that I should have missed. To give it too much air-time here would be a disservice to the reader, so I will be brief.

A squad of weekend-warriors heads out into the bayou to conduct their routine drill. When they realize they are off-track, they swipe a few canoes from the local Cajuns. As the soldiers depart down the swamp away from shore the Cajuns return and one of the "idiots" in green open fires his automatic rifle at them as a joke. The Cajuns mistake the "blanks" for real bullets and one fires back in return killing the Squad leader. The National Guardsmen attempt to make their way back to civilization while hunted by their Cajun adversaries.

Clearly a rip-off of Deliverance, Southern Comfort is just plain ridiculous on every level. The script is pathetic and the characters are asinine and unbelievable. I found myself not caring who lived or died, but only when the film would end.

Upon first viewing this film seems to just be another above average entry to the bayou sub-genre.Added to the likes of Deliverance and the first Rambo.However look closely and this tale of unexperienced guardsmen fighting off psychotic cajuns takes on another meaning. The whole film can be taken as a sly metaphor for the Vietnam war which took place almost a decade and a half before the film was made.

On one side you have the inexperienced and overequipped guardsmen, perfectly representing the technology and youth of the American forces.On the other side is the cajuns.Small in number but still very effective utilising there knowledge of the area and using nature itself to lay traps. So what at first sight seems an action packed thriller is also a gritty metaphor for one of the horrors of the last century.The film is well directed and paced.Right from the start the pace doesn't flag.The fact that the cast are mostly unknowns only adds to the tension,the audience not knowing who will bite it next.All in all an exciting thriller and well worth watching.

If the real National Guard is as inept as these dumbasses then no enemy need worry about mounting an attack at any time. I spent almost the entire couple of hours rooting for the cajuns to put these morons out of their ignorant misery. Not a bad film, but not a real winner either: there were simply to many holes for comfort. For instance, Coach went psycho way to quick, the cajuns couldn't possibly predict the route the soldiers would take in order to set traps and deposit the bodies of their buddies, and the cajuns wouldn't suddenly become lousy shots once they had the final two guardsmen trapped. Finally, could a squad of men really be this dumb? It wasn't all downhill however: the private losing his nerve and the squad leader doing the 'Rambo' like some meatheaded jerk were all to realistic. Worth seeing, but just barely.

This little gem is a moral story about how things can go wrong, very badly, when someone for a lark opens fire with blanks - those you shoot at have no chance to know that and thus rightfully shoot back, which starts a killing spree from both sides.

One side is a troop out of the Loisiana National Guard on exercise in the swamps, the other is the locals, who enjoy their French culture and life out in the swamp.

None is more evil than the other, none is more mad than the other, but the soldiers are far from home, and out of their element.

Walter Hill, the director and co-writer of Southern Comfort, does a very good job in this tale clearly inspired by the events in Viet Nam. Hill is maybe more known for such diverse films as 48 hours, Brewster's millions and Last Man Standing, and as the producer of Alien and Tales from the Crypt,.

Andrew Laszlo, for many known as the cinematographer of films like Rambo: First Blood and the TV-series Shogun, does a fantastic job here - very poetic photography in this grim setting.

Many of the actors have never been better, before, or after. This is not least true for Powers Boothe, who plays the only outsider among the soldiers. He has never been better since, Keith Carradine (who some of us remember from 'Hair' on Braodway, or 'Nashville' - which earned him an Oscar for a song!) is the intellectual, Fred Ward (Escape from Alcatraz, Short Cuts) is the cool killer type, Peter Coyote ('Keys' in E.T.) is the staff sergeant lost in the woods, Alan Autry ('Bubba' in 'In the heat of the night') freaks out, completely, Brion James (Bladerunner) excellently plays a one-armed Cajun trapper whose life take a turn for the bad when he is blamed for the first death, and Les Lannon (Silkwood, in which Fred Ward also appeared) is the sergeant that is totally out of his league in the swamp. These are just a few of the excellent cast. Forgot: One of the guys hunting the Guards is Sandy Landham, well known for his excellent acting in Predator. Scary guy - he even had a personal bodyguard during the filming of Predator - to protect those around him from his tantrums!

Add to this Ry Cooder's musical genius, in the film he's performing with Jim Dickinson and Milt Holland, the Cajun setting, and ditto music and dancing, and you have a film to remember for ever.

The only thing I don't like is the ending - did Hill run out of ideas about how to do it?

9/10

This film has a fantastic atmosphere and masterful cinematography, the location in the Louisiana bayous is perfect to create the eerie ominous tone which this film has so perfectly adopted. Many other reviewers have compared this to deliverance and I would definitely agree on an atmospheric and general plot level. This film feels like it was made in the early 1970s not the 1980s and fits in well with other films such as White Lightning (1973).

The acting in general is fairly good with the stand out performances being Keith Carradine and Powers Booth, as well as Brian James who some viewers may recognise as Leon from Blade Runner (1982). However some of the characters are a little 2D and could have benefitted from some more development.

This leads to the main issue with this film that is character and story development, the story is fairly predictable, with some notable exceptions and the characters are difficult to care about. Although Walter Hill fervently denied that this film was a metaphor for the Vietnam war I think it is hard to not see parallels which seem somewhat ham-fisted, this may well be by accident but I find that hard to buy and in some instances I think they detract from the film.

To conclude, I really enjoyed this film and is definitely worth a watch, particularly for the cinematography and soundtrack, but it is not without flaw.

If you watch the movie these days it's still one of the best movies made ever. Why? The harmony between the music and the characters and the nature surrounding them makes the composition compleet. When you'll start watching the movie and the orchestra sets in, after a while you'll will be swepped away by the compleet orchestra's sound surrounding you. Meanwhile you're still watching a movie that will blow you of your socks. The interaction between the characters is amazing. After about 20 minutes in the movie they suck you in to the swamp and leave your there to simmer. Then they meet the locals and all hell breaks loose. After this point it just gets better and better. Ry Cooder did the full sound track and he really did hit it when it needed too. When you see the DVD and watch the whole thing in it's original beauty it while capture you too. Enjoy.

In any movie when the lead characters are under siege or being stalked, it helps greatly if they behave in the most intelligent way possible. When their intelligent choices fail, the audience sympathizes and also feels a sense of growing dread.

You see this in a movie like Alien, which is of a different genre but not so dissimilar in basic structure. In that movie the characters, mostly scientists and technicians, make the right choice at every juncture based on the information they have, and still keep failing. There's conflict in the group, but the dissenting characters always eventually do as told. The constant failure of intelligent choices is a large part of what makes the movie scary.

In Southern Comfort you have a group of National Guardsmen, a few of whom seem to have a pretty good grip on things, and five or so who are flat out stupid. The choices of the stupid characters drag down the entire group. That could be one theme Walter Hill was intending to explore, but I doubt it, because later, when the competent characters are finally in control, they also make bad choices.

I'm not saying this bothers me because I think soldiers are smart or that their training always works. That's immaterial. The problem is that a group of stockbrokers or bus drivers or flamenco dancers could make better choices, so it isn't what this says about soldiers that's important, but what it says about the writers' estimations of audience intelligence.

But okay, since the first bad choice is made during the opening credits when one character callously cuts through a fishing net (not a spoiler), we know the soldiers are going to bring trouble on themselves due to their sense of macho entitlement. The idea that soldiers make enemies just by their mere presence in alien territory is clear, and has been explored in documentaries like Hearts & Minds, so I get that. And on that level Southern Comfort works fine.

The action is also pretty good because it isn't over the top. There's a dynamite explosion that puts CGI to shame. The ground actually shakes for real. So on a visceral level the movie is pretty good. And it's decently directed by Walter Hill. He would do better later, which is good, because there are some continuity fails here, including one scene where a character's wound changes sides in a cutaway, but basically it's well done and under what I imagine to be difficult circumstances.

But when the characters can't get even the most basic strategic choices right, it's tough to enjoy the movie fully. Watch it for the setting, action, and some Cajun slice of life scenes at the end, and maybe watch it to see Walter Hill playing with some ideas he'd make work better in his 80s movies, but don't expect Southern Comfort to thrill you.

Southern Comfort is a thriller rife with tension as a group of national guard troopers traverse rural America and realise they are way out of their depth. Its Vietnam parallels are obvious and effective and once the first shots are fired it is thrilling stuff right up until its final shot.

All of the cast are so good at portraying their stock characters, pretty much everything from the guy who sticks the rules too much down to the one who snaps and becomes a psychopath are accounted for but it's Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe who are the strongest. By the end you are completely invested in their survival.

Walter Hill's direction is at its strongest when overlaying images and in the final moments when he only uses the diegetic audio to really enhance the tension. That being said, the music by Ry Cooder is really good, just as bleak and barren as the film's landscapes with an uncanny ability to make everything feel uneasy.

Southern Comfort finds a small squad of Louisiana National Guardsmen on a training exercise in those swamps so familiar to me from those fabulous two months I did at Fort Polk. Where I was in the central part of the state was not as bad as where these guys were doing their weekend warrior thing. Still it's not a time I'd care to repeat.

What our weekend warriors did was upset a group of Cajun fisherman who call these swamps home and now they're shooting back at the guardsmen with real bullets. They first kill sergeant Peter Coyote which was bad because he apparently was the one best suited for leadership. The others have to find their way out of the swamps and most of them don't make it. They have a captain with them in Les Lannom, but he may have the rank, but sure not the right stuff.

The lead characters are Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe of strikingly different personalities who don't like each other, but they do see the need for a bit of discipline.

If I were in a combat situation this is not a group I'd care to have my survival depend on.

Southern Comfort, a bit of Deliverance, a bit of Platoon, is something watched and not quickly forgotten.

This squad of National Guardsmen got everything they had coming to them. What a disgrace to armed forces everywhere! They steal things, shoot at civilians for yuks, blow up civilian property for no good reason, refuse to obey orders from superiors, have no common sense whatsoever, should I go on?

Now that I got that off my chest, I will say that the actors, especially Keith Carradine and Powers Booth, did the best they could with the unrealistic script. The scenery is beautiful, the pacing of the film is very good, and the Cajun people are very convincing. I wish the Guardsmen were as convincing. I give it 6/10.