This baby fully represents my personal favorite kind of cult cinema! Released in the early 70's, obscure and almost completely untraceable, opening to the tunes of a moody and excessively outdated crooner's song whilst picturesque images of the peaceful countryside accompany the opening credits and last but not least introducing hard-laboring but conservative and slightly unworldly farmers as the lead characters. There's a proper name for this kind of movies and it's called "Hicksploitation". But "Sunday in the Country" is definitely more than just that! Obviously cashing in on the tremendous success of Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs", this Canadian produced gem shamelessly glorifies urban violence and entirely revolves on the "protect what's yours" principle. It's also a revenge/vigilante thriller, but not the ordinary type. Usually the protagonists in revenge-thrillers themselves, or their dearest relatives, are subjected to torture and humiliation before extracting their well-deserved vengeance, but the lead character in "Sunday in the Country", farmer Adam Smith (another fabulous and expedient role of Ernest Borgnine), never really becomes directly affected by criminal violence and simply does what he does because he thinks the law isn't harsh enough. Smith is a seemingly noble widower, looking after his farm and granddaughter without ever missing a Sunday morning church service. On this particular Sunday, three relentless bank robbers (two of which resembling sophisticated bankers themselves instead of violent criminals) are at large in the countryside and have already butchered a young local couple before seeking refugee in Smith's secluded farming estate. But he's prepared for their arrival and grabs the opportunity to extract some good old-fashioned Biblical punishment on them rather than to notify the police. It may superficially look like a senselessly violent and sadistic exploitation flick, but "Sunday in the Country" is actually far more competent and inventive than it first seems. The plot juxtaposes two entirely different types of psychopaths and leaves it up to the viewer to decide who's the most dangerous. On the one side there's Leroy the outrageously spastic and most likely Atheist criminal and, opposed to him, the obsessively Catholic and stoically controlled trigger-happy farmer with his own brand of justice. It's a nice little psychological undertone to a seemingly bland and rough exploit movie. The violence & bloodshed is quite uncompromising, Ernest Borgnine and Michael J. Pollard are amazing (the rest of the cast can be ignored, though) and the atmosphere is undeniably 70's. A must-see for hillbilly-connoisseurs.
