The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino’s post–Civil War whodunit, entangles a group of strangers in a tense, claustrophobic racial standoff within an isolated stagecoach lodge in Wyoming. Daisy Domergue, a member of the notorious Domergue Gang held captive for bounty, finds herself trapped with a group of men whose conflicting agendas intensify the situation during a raging blizzard. The gang’s escape plan is thwarted by Major Marquis Warren’s vendetta against the Confederate soldiers present, further escalating the tension. Ennio Morricone’s award-winning score, with its leaden horns and cunning percussion, sets the tone with a queasy, ominous orchestral arrangement. The relentless snowfall and near-unbearable cold serve as an elemental metaphor for the suffocating presence of white supremacy, culminating in the film’s brutal final chapter, “Black Man, White Hell,” in which the overwhelming force of racial hatred is laid bare in the starkest terms.