Southern Comfort (1981)

A group of city-boy National Guards are on manoeuvres out in the everglades. When they come to a river they decide the only way to cross is to help themselves to some seemingly abandoned canoes. As they do so, some Cajuns appear and one of our Guardsmen thinks it'll be oh so funny to shoot blanks at them, but these rough outdoorsmen don't know they're blanks and they return fire. The hunt is on and one by one the Guardsmen are taken out until only 2 remain and when they find themselves in the heart of the Cajun community it becomes doubtful whether anyone's going to make it out of the swamp alive.

Directed by Walter Hill who brought us The Warriors and Brewster's Millions, and starring Powers Boothe, Fred Ward of Tremors fame and Brion James, this B horror movie has earned itself quite a deserved cult status. It's well shot with the swamp giving it a  claustrophobic feel. The soundtrack of Cajun music is great but it's the imaginative and well-crafted story that puts it all together. The 'hunted by red-necks' idea seems initially like a total cliché but in reality it's not something that's used much in film. Here it's used perfectly. You will no doubt compare it to the earlier Deliverance, this is a more commercial horror film and I think it's a little unfair to put them together, however similar the stories. Personally I prefer this one. People have also tried to put this up as a parable about the Vietnam war which is something I can understand - strangers in a strange land fighting for their lives, but the director denies it's any such thing.

A well crafted and exciting film from the producer behind Alien.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083111/?ref_=nv_sr_1