Although it often appears quite low in rankings of Quentin Tarantino’s films, the plot is compelling and masterfully crafted. It’s an incredible movie. Here are The Hateful Eight’s 5 Funniest (& 5 Most Shocking) Moments.
Funniest: “Music time’s over!”
This moment is made ten times funnier by the widely circulated behind-the-scenes story surrounding it. After Daisy finishes playing a song on a guitar, John grabs it out of her hands, yells, “Music time’s over!,” and smashes the guitar against the wall. It was a great comic payoff for the more cerebral scene. The guitar used in the film was an actual antique 1870s Martin guitar that the Martin Guitar Museum lent to the filmmakers. The plan was to cut before Kurt Russell smashed the guitar and replace it with a replica for the smashing scene. But no one told Russell, so he destroyed the antique and that’s the take that Tarantino used.
Most shocking: Marquis and Chris hang Daisy
Quentin Tarantino always nails the final moments of his films. Not only are his closing scenes the perfect ending to their stories; they’re also the culmination of each movie’s unique blend of stylistic influences. The Hateful Eight ends quietly, with Chris reading Marquis’ forged letter from Abraham Lincoln.
But right before that, Marquis and Chris, each losing energy as they bleed to death, hang Daisy and watch the life leave her eyes, just to fulfill John “the Hangman” Ruth’s dying wishes. It’s so ominous and unnerving that the movie needs Chris to read the Lincoln letter to calm the audience down before the end credits roll.
Funniest: Jody shoots Marquis between the legs
Just as Marquis pieces the story together, takes charge of the room, and has Gage, Mobray, and Daisy pinned up against a wall, unarmed, the camera pans down to the basement where a previously unseen character, Jody, shoots Marquis in the crotch. The comedy of this moment extends into the surprising reveal that the character who shot Marquis is played by Channing Tatum. The 21 Jump Street star had reportedly been tapped for a role, but since he was left entirely out of the film’s marketing, it seemed unlikely that he’d be showing up. And then he burst into the movie in the most spectacularly brutal fashion.
Most shocking: John and O.B. drink the poisoned coffee
One of Quentin Tarantino’s strengths as a writer is the way he plays around with the Hitchcockian “bomb under the table” storytelling technique. When the audience knows there’s a bomb under the table, they’ll be more interested (and there’ll be more suspense) in the conversation happening above the table. A prime example of this is the opening farmhouse scene in Inglourious Basterds. Another prime example is the midpoint of The Hateful Eight, in which an off-screen character poisons the coffee pot. We see a handful of characters get a cup and mull over drinking it. It’s tense. And then, John and O.B. each take a sip. Seconds later, they’re vomiting gallons of crimson blood all over the room.
Funniest: Chris throws his coffee on the floor
Chris was one of the characters who got themselves a cup of coffee after the pot had been poisoned. But after seeing John and O.B. vomiting up blood and entrails after drinking it, he panicked and tossed the cup on the floor. Walton Goggins did a fantastic job of playing the two sides of Chris Mannix: the tough side, which is how he wants people to perceive him, and the more frightened side, when his fears come out and show themselves. When he whimpers and flings the coffee cup on the floor, Chris isn’t the tough guy that he’s made himself out to be — he’s just guy who’s shocked that he was very well almost killed.
Most shocking: Chris blows Jody’s brains out onto Daisy’s face
After Jody shoots Marquis in the testicles and a gunfight breaks out, Marquis and Chris manage to emerge on top. Only Daisy is left alive, and she’s unarmed. Jody surrenders in order to save Daisy’s life. He comes out of the basement with his hands up, and looks over at Daisy. They smile at one another, share a really sweet moment, and then Chris shoots Jody in the back of the head, blowing his brains out onto Daisy’s face. It’s an example of the cartoonish yet effective, over-the-top violence in the movie. Daisy is understandably horrified as her face is coated in sticky pieces of Jody’s head.
Funniest: Mobray’s accent changes
For the first half of the movie, when English Pete Hickox is going by the alias “Oswaldo Mobray,” Tim Roth plays the character with a posh accent, drawing influences from classic British character actors. However, in the second half of the movie, as his false identity fades away and Hickox is exposed, he switches to more of a Cockney accent, like his “Pumpkin” character from Tarantino’s earlier movie, Pulp Fiction.
In the flashback scene, we see that Hickox has been using the posh accent to trick people into trusting him, and he’s been putting it on throughout the whole movie.
Most shocking: Daisy chops off John’s arm
When the climactic shootout kicks off, Daisy is caught in the crossfire, handcuffed to John’s heavy corpse. She’s not strong enough to pull him away, and she needs to get some cover, so she grabs a nearby machete and starts chopping. She desperately hacks at John’s forearm until it’s loose enough to just rip it off. And then, when she gets it off, she’s got a bloody stump attached to her. Quentin Tarantino is infamous for depicting graphic violence in his movies, but when it’s this absurd and unrealistic for cinematic effect, it becomes a sort of gut-wrenching visual opera.
Funniest: “You’re gonna make a deal with this diabolical b***h?”
The acting by the brilliant ensemble cast is one of the main reasons why The Hateful Eight works. And those performances were brought to life by the gigantic Ultra Panavision 70 lenses that Quentin Tarantino and his cinematographer Robert Richardson used to shoot the movie. Every little detail in the actors’ facial expressions can be noted. This was particularly effective for Samuel L. Jackson, who acts very expressively. Jackson’s riveting portrayal of Major Marquis Warren is powerful in some spots and hilarious in others. His panicked delivery of the line, “You’re gonna make a deal with this diabolical b***h?,” played in super slow-motion, is an example of the latter.
Most shocking: Marquis details what he did to the General’s son
When we first meet General Smithers, he explains that he’s heading into Red Rock to bury his son, who was found dead from unknown causes. Later in the movie, Major Warren tells the General that he knew his son, and he knows what happened to him. The Major forced him to strip and then marched him through a snowy clearing for miles at gunpoint, while the Major himself was wrapped up warm. When the General’s son can take no more and collapses, almost frozen to death, desperate for something warm...well, we all know the rest. How much of this is true, and how much Warren made up to get a rise out of Smithers, is unclear, but it’s certainly shocking.
