Many horror films, it could be argued, are through the eyes of our female heroines. They are usually the heart of the piece and often fight back. Think Laurie Strode in Halloween or Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. The sympathy we feel for them is matched only by their resilience in the face of danger. John Boorman's backwater survival movie though plays on similar ideas to the later camp counsellor horrors of the eighties (fear of the unknown in the forest) but here, the idea of masculinity it investigated too. Four businessmen decide to take a trip down the Cahulawassee River before the valley is flooded to create a dam and lake. It is clear though, through their interactions with the backwater locals that they are outsiders here, and unwelcome ones at that. Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is an all-action alpha male whereas his friends are scared city-boys, unsure of their environment. One morning though, Ed (Jon Voight) and Bobby (Ned Beatty) meet two hillibillies who, after taking offence at a comment, end up sodomising Bobby (the infamous 'squeal like a pig' scene) before Lewis shoots an arrow through one of the attackers. From there, their escape is hampered by both the environment and the pursuing locals until the unassuming Ed must become an animal and take down the hillbilly that witnessed the murder. Again, this plays upon the nightmare of taking us from our safe locales and dropping us into an alien, hostile environment. It is truly horrific too and, just as many horrors question what 'being a woman' actually means, this film examines 'what being a man is'. Is Ed more masculine because he kills someone? Is Bobby less of a man because of the rape? These are questions for us to answer but, as the blood red hand rises out of the lake at the end, the questions will haunt the group for the rest of their lives.
