mg_a5

Why so grouchy, fellow reviewers? It might help to think of Rattlesnake not as a horror film, but as a folktale, told in rich detail in a slow drawl. I've watched it three times, it's become a kind of ritual for me: the heat-saturated cinematography, the series of quick-sketched minor characters (check out the gun salesman, and the creepy husband who Keeps Her In Her Place), and the beautiful logic of the climax- the desperate mother must kill to save her daughter, but in killing must lose her soul, or at least our sympathy: the solution to that conundrum is brilliant, and elegantly brings the tale full circle. Of all the movies lately that are shot in the desert to save money, this one is my favorite.