The drama of The Furies has been played over many times in many genres. It isthe struggle for identity and power that takes place between a parent and a child; it could be MildredPierce, Psycho or The Magnificent Ambersons. But here the characters wear cowboy hats, ride horses andbelong to a ranch named after the unforgiving fates of Greek tragedy, the Furies. Although the picture neversays this outright, it is about a father and a daughter who dream of sleeping together, and thus it takes usinto a whole category of Western in which a woman desires the strength and status of a man: not just theBelle Starr story, but Wellman's Westward the Women, Bonnie and Clyde, Bloody Mama, Fuller's Forty Gunsand the relentless Pearl from Duel in the Sun, all of them affected by Scarlett O'Hara from the firstfeminist Western...In this case, the struggle is between a flamboyant rancher and his smoldering daughter.The passion of the relationship is as much concerned with psychological undercurrents as with control ofthe land. That level of interest allows it to be something nearly unthinkable in Hollywood: a Western filmnoir. Like Psycho, it is a pursuit nightmare about stolen money and a flawed hero, set in the territory of thedesert between Phoenix and L.A., with an old homestead ruined by its furies. David Thomson ("After theWestern," PFA 1984)