Clearcut (1991)

What Clearcut brings to the table as far as its folk horror kin and similar films like Deliverance are concerned is a bitter, confrontational tone and a crystal clear environmental message. It perhaps goes about this a little too aggressively, but I concede that the environment should be taken seriously. Others will likely be put off, and that's before an Indian avenger shows up to murder and torture white folk with a cruel satisfaction, like an animal or worse: a savage. The film is more intelligent than it initially lets on though, and by the end, everything makes sense and you can appreciate the way the film attempts to provoke discussion and awareness, even if it does so a bit crudely at times.

The native folklore that's explored here, and particularly the way it's explored, distinguishes the film greatly. It takes some very quite literate concepts drawn from ancient beliefs and oral traditions and fits them into the story and structure of something caught between hickspolitation and hostage film. It gets gruesome more than a few times, and our hero isn't perhaps the most dynamic banana in the bunch, but overall it's far more intelligent than your average horror film, and the native touch is more than simple set-dressing. Perhaps most of all, the film doesn't end with an 'it was all a dream' twist which I was almost certain was what was coming, which was an enormous relief.

Discounting some dodgy CG from time to time, the film nails the look of a seventies film. Its washed-out look didn't win me over at first, but it ended up being quite appropriate for the harsh subject matter. The acting is solid all around and entirely believable. The music was appropriately composed of sparse traditional nature American instrumentation and silence. Clearcut doesn't exceed expecations in every department, exactly, but it will be somebody's favorite of the All the Haunts Be Ours box set all the same because it has an intensely felt and easily deciphered environmental message which it delivers with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, barring the ending which does at least require that you pay good attention to figure out what exactly was going on all along. It's provocative and exactly what all good horror cinema is supposed to be: frightening. If we continue to hurt the earth, do you think she might ever start defending herself?