3. Deliverance (1972)
Lewis, Ed, Bobby and Drew are four businessmen from the city who are having an adventure holiday in the backwoods of Georgia. They agree between themselves to explore some uncharted domain despite warnings from the local rednecks. Grimy and impoverished, the city men stick out like a sore thumb but Drew manages to engage a mute, inbred boy in a duet of duelling banjoes. Despite this display of apparent bonhomie, the rednecks in Georgia are not what you would call friendly. When Bobby and Ed get separated, they go onto land when two rifle wielding crazed rednecks descend upon them. They viciously rape Bobby and get him to squeal like a pig. Lewis and Drew come to the rescue, but the mood of the trip is irrevocably altered after this ghastly experience. You will never travel to rural Georgia after watching this film. Director John Boorman went all out for authenticity and hired local actors to play the rednecks. This gives the movie a scary realism - like Lonnie the banjo playing boy. How would you get a character like that in a Hollywood casting session? He is genuinely really freaky. The rape of Bobby is a horrid sight to behold, to see a man that degraded and abused. It marks a pivotal turn in the plot - things start to spiral out of control and the men are not quite as capable or as assured as they were when they started the trip. It must have been one of the first, if not the first, strong depiction of male rape in Hollywood and it has a scary verisimilitude due to the local actors involved. The most believable depiction of rednecks in Cinema.