The Hunt

On top of being a horror movie fan, I'm also a wrestling fan. As former WCW booker turned podcaster, Eric Bischoff is fond of saying, and even titled his book, Controversy Creates Cash. It's why anytime there's an uproar about something, the news producer in me always has to find out why before I take a stance one way or another, an art that's tragically lost on so many people. So when this blew up, I knew I was going to have to check out...

The Hunt (2020)

This was an interesting one. Basically, it's about a group of rich liberals who kidnap a bunch of conservatives and hunt them for sport. Think The Most Dangerous Game but replace "dude who was unlucky enough to wash up on a rich guy's island" with a bunch of people having the "wrong" political beliefs. It's a really fun movie and it's different than a lot of what you get out of Hollywood. I'm not talking about the premise, because while that isn't exactly groundbreaking, it's not often Hollywood will make a movie where liberals are the bad guys and conservatives are the good guys. While the movie does straddle the line with its "both sides" take at times, it does tilt further in the mocking of the liberal elites. The movie suffered on release due to bad timing with a mass shooting and the new release date coinciding with the pandemic. Not only that, but it suffered a completely wrong reading of the tone of the movie from Republicans and then-President Donald Trump. It's a shame because I really liked it.

So, as I mentioned, a group of very rich liberals kidnap a bunch of right-wingers and drops them in the middle of a field so they can gun them down. When the narrative switches from the liberals to those being hunted, we have Emma Roberts waking up gagged and confused. The movie immediately sets her up as the protagonist. Minutes later her head explodes after a high-speed collision with a bullet in a really jarring moment. The movie then switches over to a different protagonist, and wouldn't ya know it? Things don't work out for him either! We have multiple potential heroes reach their end before they finally land on one, a blonde woman named Crystal. I loved that about the movie. It can be fun having your expectations played with.

Let me talk about Crystal for a moment. She is awesome! We know next to nothing about her except she spent time in Afghanistan and is bad ass. She has a very direct and slow way of talking like she carefully crafted everything she was about to say in her head before it came out and it can be downright scary. She doesn't talk much but she says a lot in her facial reactions. You can see her size up and study every person she meets and it's a joy to watch. One second she'll be standing there and the next she'll explode into a tornado of violence. She is also so much scarier than the villains in the movie that you can't help but laugh at how underprepared they were for her. There's a scene where she's talking to a fellow survivor and tells the story about the "Jackrabbit and the Box Turtle." It starts as the "Tortoise and the Haire" story we all know, but my God does it take a dark turn at the end. The way she tells it and the music playing in the background is so damn unsettling. The camera just rests on her the entire time, only cutting away for the occasional reaction shot to this insane story. After she gets done telling it, they cut back to her fellow survivor who can't believe what he just heard. He has such a look of shock and can only ask, "Your mama told you that story?" His reaction is so spot on because there's no other way to process what she just said. It's hilarious, but the story and the way she tells it are terrifying and made her one of my favorite horror movie heroes I've seen in a long time.

The conservative characters are all dripping in stereotypes, but you don't get much of the hunted because most of them die off quickly and Crystal is an unknowable force of nature. You do get to learn a decent amount about the antagonists and I really enjoyed any time they would be talking amongst each other. It's like they're compelled to show off how, sorry for using this done-to-death term, "woke" they all are. There's a scene where they're going through a slide show so they can pick their victims when the third slide is a black man. They're all disgusted that he was on the list, but the guy in charge of picking the prisoners, says if they don't have a single person of color it's going to be problematic! It's so funny how they never switch off. Plus it has Glenn Howerton playing, you guessed it, a smug asshole! And that is always a good time. One last thing about the antagonists; I love how strong their convictions are. Crystal just finished laying waste to a bunker and is about to execute one of the women in the group. Her fellow survivor tells her to stop because she's a woman. The baddie rolls her eyes and then Crystal asks her, "Hey Miss, do you think you should be afforded mercy just because you're a girl?" 

She looks at Crystal like 'why are you even asking?' before saying no and is promptly shot. It's so funny.

One more note on the baddies, I enjoyed that they weren't just pure evil. From the beginning you know they're rich and smug and they hate the right, but it explains how they got that way. They're exceedingly powerful people whose status took a major hit. But instead of looking inward for why they're feeling so impotent, they blame it on conservatives and feel justified in what they're doing. I also liked how one of the elites expresses regret when she sees one of the victims wearing a wedding ring. It gives the baddies a shade of gray that I wasn't expecting. While watching, I found it funny that each side is portrayed as exactly how the right and left view each other in the real world. 

I came into this movie expecting to be entertained and I'd say The Hunt goes above and beyond. It has the absolute perfect blend of violence, gore and humor. I can understand why someone may be put off by the movie, but it's awesome and is relatively even-handed. To give you an idea of how good this movie is and how much I loved the characters, I haven't mentioned how great Hillary Swank is as the leader of the baddies. This movie is awesome and a whole lot of fun.

9.5 Dr. Chainsaws!