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craftyguy

> sometimes there is a cone of silence which is really strong, and quite at odds with what we think of as "the law"

Reminds me of the plot of the movie Hot Fuzz.

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Yeah I decided idyllic English villages aren't for me, after watching Hot Fuzz and Midsomer Murders.

I watched a few episodes of Midsomer Murders today. It's a classic.

recommend any other such films? I'm all over that small town lawless stuff

I liked "U Turn" https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120399/ (set in small town Arizona)

I've heard good things about Shetland and Broadchurch, but I'm yet to watch them.

dogville : )

Top of the lake, broadchurch, sharp objects. Those are all tv series.

Try 'The Loch' (or 'Loch Ness', the US title). Nice bit of Scottish small town murder.

Also, 'Shetland' - you can't get more 'small town' than that (in the UK).

I loved Top of the Lake. It was a very relatable TV show for me as a New Zealander. That kind of thing does actually happen in rural NZ, although I would've said it's stereotypically more a Northland than a Southland thing.

Trapped, Icelandic TV series, is also very good. Also you may like 'The Fall' (a slightly different genre, but bone chilling)

This is a theme of pretty much everything Stephen King has ever written.

Hot Fuzz, U-Turn, Dogville (others already mentioned them).

Deliverance (of course)

The Lottery ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116924/ tv movie, based on a great short story)

The Wicker Man

Twin Peaks

Cold in July

Also, "The Trouble with Harry", although not the best Hitchcock.

In Galicia (NW region of Spain) there is a TV series called "Serramoura" which elevates this to ridiculous levels. The series is supposed to take place in a very small town (maybe 20 people or so) but the series' death toll is probably like 50 by now (they are in season 8). At the beginning I think there were only sawmill enterprise conflicts for land, but now the viewers have seen arms trafficking, drugs trafficking, Russian mafias, mass kidnapping... and probably more (I don't even watch it, this is what I have picked up just from looking at parts of chapters from time to time).

When I see my partner watching it casually, I always joke that I don't understand how there are still survivors in Serramoura and how people still go live there, it would probably be less dangerous to go to a city in war.

I wouldn't exactly "recommend" the series and don't even know if it has been translated to any other languages than Galician, but just wanted to share because I find it funny.

Not a film (though there is one too) but: Twin Peaks.

Death in Paradise (TV series)

I hope you're not assuming Midsomer Murders bears much resemblance to real life. :)

(Source: until a couple of years ago, we lived in one of the Oxfordshire locations where it frequently films.)

Let's encourage that belief. I'd like house prices to fall there

Has that worked for you before?

> I hope you're not assuming Midsomer Murders bears much resemblance to real life. :)

Unlike Hot Fuzz, which is basically a documentary.

Uhh, I thought it was an over-the-top comedy film...

Seriously. There is a scene in Hot Fuzz wherein a handful of policemen are toting - in the modern day in a first-world country - Sten Guns, SMLEs, double-barrel shotguns and a pump-action with the price-tag still on it, and as they move from cover-to-cover all of their movements are punctuated by somebody checking their chamber (except that that's only sound effects). It even has a "Gilligan's Cut".

How does that scene belong in a film that is even slightly outside the realm of (attempted) comedy!?

You weren't downvoted because you were wrong - of course Hot Fuzz is significantly a comedy film. You were downvoted because you missed the sarcasm.

I see. HN is textual and it was unmarked so I consider that the sarcasm-author's fault.

IMO, it's apparent from the context, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks, yes, I'd love to live there. I was just joking.

“‘It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.’

‘You horrify me!’

‘But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger.’”

Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, 1892

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