Cockfighter

Cockfighter looks as sleek an item - and almost as exploitable - as any of the company's recent work in the girl gang prison revolt cycle, and far less bizarre than the two Westerns which [Roger] Corman allowed [director Monte] Heilman to make.

Hellman embraces, with visual nuance, a world of back roads and forests, grim motels and ramshackle arenas, and he approaches the intricacies of the subculture ... with a cool Hemingwayesque moralism.

...if you can stomach the poultry carnage and bleak gender dynamics (Frank’s voiceover-narration sendoff to discarded girlfriend Laurie Bird is particularly nasty), it’s a singular slice of vintage Americana...

This is a blood and guts art film with unforgettable intensity and stark scenes that few films have managed to capture with such fervor.