The only movies Quentin Tarantino has ever walked out of: “Both take place in the woods”
Some directors are hellbent on preserving the sanctity of film. They are utterly devoted to the purity of the art form and make decisions based not on what will delight and thrill the audience, but what will compel critics and lovers of cinematic creations to lavish them with knowing nods of praise. Despite being regarded as a true innovator, and a cinematic icon, Quentin Tarantino is no cinema purist.
The idiosyncrasies that define films like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Kill Bill are a testament to the director’s breadth of taste, patience and tolerance for B-movie cheese. His 2022 book Cinema Speculation is littered with references to films like Tobe Hooper’s 1981 slasher Funhouse and other less-than-loved genre movies. The director has rarely been quiet about his adoration for the schlocky side of cinema.
All of this is to say that it’s hard to imagine Quentin Tarantino walking out of a movie before he’s seen it through to the very end. It comes as a surprise to learn, therefore, that there are two movies the famously gore-hungry director couldn’t stomach.
During a conversation with The Los Angeles Times to promote Cinema Speculation, Tarantino was asked if there are any films that he wished he’d not been shown as a child. “I think Bambi is well known for traumatizing children,” he replied. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true.” Released in 1942, Bambi is the ultimate tearjerker. It follows the titular young deer as he explores his forest home with his new friends, Thumper the rabbit and Flower the, uh, skunk. He’s been brought up to learn that there are dangers in the open meadows, where hunters lie in wait for woodland creatures. Young Tarantino asked to leave the cinema during the scene where Bambi’s mother is shot and killed.
It’s hard to hold it against him. The scene has gone down in history as one of the most shocking for children watching the picture. There are millions of audience members who, though they may have stuck it out, wished they could have left the cinema.
But what about when he was older? Tarantino could only have been a kid when he watched Bambi, and the film offers a famously pessimistic portrait of life on earth, so you can’t blame him for being upset. It’s only when we’re older that our fears become more telling. “The only other movie I couldn’t handle and had to leave was at a drive-in in Tennessee,” Tarantino continued. “I was there alone, sitting on the gravel by a speaker, watching Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left.”
Tarantino came of age when the horror genre was really coming into its own. He’s since talked about his adoration for the ’70s and ’80s slasher films like Halloween, My Bloody Valentine and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the latter of which he once described as a “perfect” movie. And yet, he couldn’t stand to sit through Last House on The Left. The 1972 film tells the story of teenagers Mari and Phyllis, who go searching for drugs after a concert but end up being captured by a gang of escaped convicts, who torture, rape and eventually kill them in the woods near Mari’s house.
No wonder Tarantino was put off; that’s some pretty strong stuff. So, what unites these two films that Tarantino found so hard to see to their conclusion, and which both occupy the same spot on the top shelf of his personal video library? “Both take place in the woods,” he explained, “And both had me saying, ‘I gotta get out of here!”
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