But what's this? Upon reaching the cabin the group find that Minnie is peculiarly absent - gone to visit family on the other side of the mountain, says the not exactly trustworthy looking Mexican stranger Bob, who claims to have been left in charge. Inside are a disparate bunch of characters also seeking shelter from the storm - among them Tim Roth's outlandish hangman Oswaldo Mobray, and Michael Madsen's monosyllabic loner Joe Gage.
Are all these travellers who they say they are? Can they all be trusted? And what's with that jellybean stuck between the floorboards that Warren notices as he comes in?
The Hateful Eight is a solid story, with narrative tropes old as time, a firm genre flick from a director who basically makes the apotheosis of genre flicks - taking pulpy conventions and raising them to the level of, perhaps, fine art.
But I have to say, Tarantino has lacked vitality, for me, ever since 1997's Jackie Brown. You can see his early zestiness sprout through Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Natural Born Killers, really come to bloom in Pulp Fiction, and already by Jackie Brown be wilting somewhat. Jackie is maybe my favourite of his films, still lively, yet deeper, more mature than his previous work - but I do think you can sense the zenith of his creativity having been reached, and his cinematic virility cooling into middle-aged filmmaking formula.
Pulp Fiction was the most exciting, Jackie Brown the strongest, and after that he's never been quite the same. I've very much enjoyed every one of his films since, and they've all contained moments of brilliance. But his talent, world-class as it is, has always felt like it's been searching for a spark.
He's worked hard, he's just not been as inspired as he was in those early years.
Anyway, The Hateful Eight doesn't reverse this trend - it's not a Goodfellas-era-Scorsese revival - but it is my favourite since Kill Bill Vol. 2. If we're doing the Scorsese thing then it's all least The Departed, or maybe Wolf of Wall Street.
All his tics are present and correct - the rhythms of the exchanges, the repetitions of the dialogue, the broken linearity of the narrative, the anachronisms of style, the self-awareness. At his worst Tarantino can be like a pastiche of himself, and Hateful Eight perhaps slips once or twice into this realm - when you feel the style is overtaking the content, when he's using jarring techniques because he can't help himself, or because he doesn't know what else to do, rather than because the material demands it. Sometimes you sense a posturing that masks the emptiness of the material beneath - like he's using the template of that carpool conversation from Pulp Fiction over and over, with less and less inside the template that he has to say. Or a scenario that doesn't rise above genre cliche, yet he gets away with it, just, because of the style of the presentation.
But Death Proof through Django were worse for it than this. Mostly The Hateful Eight is appropriately judged, and there's a strong enough story to warrant the stylistic approach. The characters feel alive and human, if larger than life, and there's an emotional core - and an indelicate yet appropriately bold simmering of racial tensions - that gives the film its depth.
Sam Jackson is superb, with eyes bulging and burning with fury, yet also showing hurt and shock, a poignancy at the centre of the story that it needs.
Tim Roth has all the fun with the preposterous Mobray, and Walter Goggins is very good as a racist redneck sheriff, Tarantino once again taking an experienced character actor and allowing him to shine.
And it's all filmed in magnificent 70mm - a wide format offering far more detail than most film, reserved when it was used for Ben-Hur like epics. Tarantino gets an obvious thrill from subverting expectations, opening with the expansive, humanity-dwarfing vistas that are a requisite for the approach, before crushing the narrative down to his cramped one-room play.
Yet he knows what he's doing - the 70mm stock brings a grandeur but also a claustrophobia to the haberdashery, with often the entire cabin visible at once, and the cast spread about as in a painting - two of them perhaps involved in some drama in the foreground, with groups of ones or twos spread out at the corners of the shot.
And because of the proportions and the available detail in the format, Tarantino and regular cinematographer Robert Richardson can leave us in a wide shot of characters, with plenty of surrounding scenery, while still showing us the kind of emotion in the eyes that would normally require a close-up.
It's thrilling stuff, really benefiting the story - in the parlour-game nature of the narrative it's important we keep the players in our minds, where they're situated, the moves they're making - and 70mm is perfect for this.
What else? I was ambivalent about the violence, as usual with Tarantino. Mostly it was shocking for the right reasons, visually beguiling at the same time as being morally repellent, refusing to shy away from the sometimes bloody nature of our world. But at times it crossed into sadism, I thought.
The look of the film was strong, a colour palette of deep reds and browns, blues and burnished golds. You feel the warmth of the cabin compared to the biting cold outside, but it is an eerie warmth, a malevolence hiding within it.
And so, too, the score by Ennio Morricone, who was coaxed into writing one last Western theme. It races ever forwards, like that opening stagecoach, while a threat of malice weaves in and out over the top - like those stormclouds amassing above.
The Hateful Eight is an excitingly told tale, a classic storytelling scenario stretched by a filmmaking grandmaster into a huge and bold piece of cinema. It isn't Tarantino's best work, but it is the best he's been in a while, and despite a few faults it is absolutely worth your time. He may not be the hippest young firebrand on the block anymore, but boy has he still got some moves!
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