Pretty brutal and gory yet in someways quite surreal. Not sure if I was fully aware of all the historical details but the concept seemed quite well thought out. There were clearly hallmarks of other tarantino movie sin this even a golden haze in one shot that was similar to the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.
Not having seen a Tarantino movie for a while I am always surprised at how verbose the characters are even when they appear to be bleeding to death.
The non linearity of the film and narration by (I think) Tarantino did help guide the audience somewhat. I was desperately trying to count who the hateful eight were but luckily I figured it out as being the four characters from each carriage that came along to the same rest stop.