Sangue Selvagem

A Southerner (Brad Dourif) -- young, poor, ambitious but uneducated -- determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.

This film is brilliant for its examination of religion and for its casting. On the former point, some aspects are clearly exaggerated. The world is full of crazy preachers, but probably not so many in one town that they are stumbling over each other. Is the film against religion? No. On the surface, yes, but it is really against hypocrisy.

And the casting... Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty are great, but Brad Dourif runs the show, and it is a shame his name is not more widely known outside of film fanatic circles...

Black humor has never been done better. But this is not a film for the squeamish. It's going to take some thought. Not a film to be watched while doing the dishes. This is a challenging but rewarding film that borders on being a great work of art. The first time I saw this film I was impressed. Each time I rewatch this movie it becomes more funny in an odd sort of fatalistic way. Each time I rewatch it it becomes more impressive. It's almost impossible to describe the way the bittersweet pathos of the movie collides with the funny, goofy, craziness of the characters. We've seen these people but rarely do we really consider their lives. They're damaged or idiots or inept swindlers or all three. We look at them with small amusement or try to get away from them, but don't give them much thought. I usually don't care much about actors. They are a dime a dozen. This film is different. This is pretty much every actors best role. Brad Dourif shows why he should be way more famous. Amy Wright is spellbinding in as a very strange girl. Dan Shor is hilarious and pathetic at the same time as a lonely moron. Stanton is hysterically funny as an utterly corrupt preacher. Lot's of other unusual and interesting performances including a small but wonderful performance by a sympathetic one armed mechanic, a wise but vicious highway patrolman and a small town hooker enjoying her own downward spiral. In the end all of the characters are doomed, but they are all worth caring for in spite of and because of their own strange but very human weaknesses. In addition it's beautifully filmed and has a heart rendering score that fits it perfectly. Reputed to be Hustons own personal favorite film, it bombed at the box office. Highly recommended.

I am not a reader of Flannery O'Conner, so I can't comment on her point, but I know she is considered a great American writer of Southern Gothic fiction, and that she only wrote two novels, one of which was made into this film.

I am familiar with Brad Dourif, who got an Oscar nomination for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was most recently in Rob Zombie's Halloween, is familiar to TV viewers on "Deadwood," and is the voice of Chucky. He put himself in the very capable hands of a great director, John Huston, who won Oscars for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (writing and directing), and accumulated 13 other nominations for such classics as Sergeant York, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, The Asphalt Jungle, and Prizzi's Honor.

What we get is a dramedy that is more comedy than drama. Hazel Motes (Dourif), in reaction to his strict fundamentalist upbringing, starts a church that he calls The Church of Christ Without Christ. Now, that will go over well down here in the South! He meets an assortment of preachers/con-men (Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty), a non-stop talker (Dan Shor), and an oversexed 17-year-old (Amy Wright). The collective wit of the entire cast in this film is about equal to a bowl of soup, and that is what makes it funny.

One of the first of Dourif's over 120 appearances, and it is a hoot!

What other testament to how criminally neglected this film is other than the fact it has a rough 900 votes at the time of writing this? A movie directed by John Huston of all people. That's not to say Wise Blood is not a flawed film, few if any such films exist after all, nor that it has that dramatic wholesomeness and clear characterization that makes something like Sierra Madre the classic it is, yet, much like other 80's cult items like Repo Man, it remains endlessly watchable and fascinating.

The movie follows the trials and tribulations of a young man fresh back from a war (not specified which - any war will do really) somewhere in the deep South who starts out as an angry man who believes in no saviours and no dogmas and dreams of a Church of Christ without Christ but slowly finds himself digressing out of circumstances out of his hand to that which he most loathes. It's not specified to what extent the war changed him as a man or if it did at all, or if a fundamendalist grandfather (played in a flashback cameo by John Huston himself) played a role in his formative years.

Turning from fierce individualist and hater of preachers to zealous preacher of his own church where there is neither fall, redemption or judgement because there's nothing to fall from and nothing to be redeemed for, and from preacher to self-tormenting repentant, Brad Dourif brings Hazel Motes and his monomaniac pursuit alive with burning passion. Always tense and ready to lash out at everyone and anyone, he's a seething mass of tendons and nerves writhing with agitation.

I have not read Flannery O'Connor's original novel nor have I been brought up in a Protestant or Catholic background (or the deep South for that matter), but there's something captivating about Wise Blood beyond and despite its particular subject matter. That elusive quality that turns a good movie into a haunting one. Still, it's easy to see why it failed to find an audience when it came out and has been largely forgotten since. The seriocomic mood is perhaps a bit too incosistent for the viewer who needs to quickly determine what kind of response the movie demands. Part religious drama, part road movie, part demented black comedy, part satiric oddity, Wise Blood is as hard to file under a specific label as it is to watch without a reaction. Yet it doesn't fail in any of them, and that's why it's such a bonafide cult film, rather than merely a curiosity.

Blessed with a powerhouse performance by Dourif, enhanced by cameos of such character actor stalwarts as Harry Dean Stanton (in the role of blind preacher) and Ned Beatty, the picturesque baroque of the American South, and assured direction by the venerable John Huston, Wise Blood, in all its southern gothic glory, is a cult film crying out to be rediscovered by a new audience.

Vignette styled look at southern towns, corruption, hypocrisy, and the hidden 'evils' of evangelism. Has a atmosphere that is so thick you can almost taste it.

Dourif's performance is so good, so solid, and so powerful that it literally propels you through the story no matter which avenue it takes (and it does take some strange avenues). His performance should have won him the Academy award and shows just how poorly used he has been. This is for all those who think Chucky in CHILD'S PLAY is the best thing he has done.

Although never completely satisfying, the final 20 minutes do have some rather 'odd' twists that may stay with you even after it's long over.