Filmmaster Quentin Tarantino has done it again with his latest film The Hateful Eight. With notable alumni from his past movies, such as Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen, alongside newcomers Jennifer Jason Leigh and Channing Tatum, The Hateful Eight is a tale of vengeance and deception.

The movie begins with bounty hunter John Ruth and his fugitive Daisy Domergue en route to the town of Red Rock. While in pursuit of his fortune, Ruth crosses paths with African-American, former Union soldier and fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren, followed by southern rebel and self-proclaimed new sheriff of Red Rock Chris Mannix. Failing to outrun a rapidly approaching blizzard, the band of travelers seek refuge in Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach lodge, where they are welcomed not by the hospitable owner Minnie, but by four strange men. Bob, a Mexican who helps the visitors tie up their stagecoach, informs them that he was left in charge by Minnie while she visits her mother. He is joined by Oswaldo Mobray, the hangman of Red Rock, cowboy Joe Gage and the silent Confederate General Sanford Smithers. As truths are revealed and the storm befalls the mountainside refuge, reaching Red Rock becomes less and less likely for these eight haphazard companions.

Tarantino began preparing for the production of the movie in October 2014. Ten miles west of Telluride, Colorado, on a 900-acre high-mesa landscape known as Schmid Ranch, the director and his film crew made plans to build the intimate homestead that is now known as the calamitous confines in which the film’s band of misfits converge: Minnie’s Haberdashery.

However, the rest of the film’s execution did not continue as swimmingly. In early 2014, the first draft of The Hateful Eight script was illegally leaked online through a site that lets users anonymously upload and download files. Intending to write at least three drafts of the script before deciding on the final version that would narrate the movie’s hectic scenes, Tarantino was understandably upset and infuriated by its premature release. In response, the acclaimed director announced that he would be abandoning the film and discontinuing its production. He planned to publish the film as a novel and possibly revisit the prospect of directing the film in the future, but not as his next project.

Despite his desertion of the project, Tarantino relented and made a surprise announcement that he would be holding a live reading of the finished version of the script at The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, he visited the Cannes Film Festival for a 20th-anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction, which prompted a change of heart: he would proceed with the filming of The Hateful Eight after all. Fast forward two months and the production crew takes root in Telluride, Colorado, working on the huge wooden set where the movie’s second half takes place.

After the early roadblock in The Hateful Eight’s production, Tarantino wanted to create a film that exceeded all expectations and left viewers in awe of its splendor. Choosing a unique filming approach that complements the vast landscapes and horizon-stretching scenery of western films, Tarantino opted for a recondite camera process called Ultra Panavision 70 to capture his newest motion picture. Panavision’s anamorphic camera lenses take images on 70 millimeter film (compared to the 35 millimeter film of typical movies), resulting in a wider and more detailed picture. However, since movies are not typically shown at this scale, many theaters across the country were forced to either upgrade their equipment or forego the screening of The Hateful Eight. Only 100 theaters in the entire country were equipped to play the film in 70 millimeter through an actual film projector, causing the movie to be a special experience reserved for exclusive audiences willing to trek to a designated theater.

As if the film were not already unique enough, Tarantino revived the grand film exhibition style of 1950s roadshows, a form of theatrical release that brought audiences to theaters with the promise of a special event. Tarantino reveres roadshows as a form of release that made movies memorable. What differentiates them from normal movie releases are their grandeur: reserved-seat tickets are sold well in advance, and each ticket comes with a souvenir program that includes behind-the-scenes photos, character descriptions, and character posters. As the audience takes their seats, a stagnant image that reads “OVERTURE” comes on screen as a Broadway show introductory version of the soundtrack plays softly in the background. Once the music ends, the lights dim and the picture begins. No trailers. No ads for the theater’s concessions. No requests to turn off electronic devices. The movie immediately begins.

What follows this introduction, however, is a lot less simple. In the fictional account of history that is The Hateful Eight, Tarantino divides the movie into two parts with several chapters and a 12-minute intermission between the two acts, a signature characteristic of roadshows. Meticulously unfolding the movie’s context and preparing for the whirlwind of events that follow in later chapters, the film’s first half is somewhat of a slow build and has been attacked by critics as unnecessarily long and drawn out. As a director, Tarantino is constantly breaking boundaries and setting his own rules with the creation of his films, ignoring tried and true filmmaking methods and taking risks with new ideas. While The Hateful Eight does at times venture into tedium, this is simply Tarantino’s way of avoiding mediocrity and moderatism, forcing moviegoers to pick a side between fan or foe of his films.

Another signature element of Tarantino’s films is their controversial subject matter. Having toyed with topics such as slavery, homosexuality, violence and misogynism in the past, Tarantino engulfs his audience in the racism that plagued our nation for decades after the Civil War. Minnie’s Haberdashery becomes the divided America of post Civil War times that has stretched beyond the walls of this fictitious stagecoach lodge into the contemporaneity of today. Fitting an entire nation in a single room, Tarantino thrusts his audience into the world of hate and cruelty that our ancestors were both perpetrators and victims of.

Whether you are a fan or a critic of The Hateful Eight’s extreme and controversial nature, one thing is for certain: Quentin Tarantino’s resurrection of a forgotten form of cinematic presentation is a special experience that moviegoers will likely never have again. Even if you are not a huge Tarantino fan, experiencing his latest film in the lost art of 70 millimeter projection is reminiscent of a time when seeing movies was more special than it is today.