The Hunt (2020)
Directed by Craig Zobel
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are—or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. But their master plan is about to be derailed when one of the hunted turns the tables on her pursuers.
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“The Hunt” tries to tackle America’s zeitgeist by riffing on Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and pitting liberal elites preying on Trump’s “deplorables” for sport.
It’s loosely based on Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game , about a millionaire who kidnaps people and brings them to his island where he hunts them for sport – until he meets his match.
Advertising for The Hunt suggested a modernized The Most Dangerous Game , chronicling a group of wealthy liberal elites hunting uneducated, low-income conservatives for sport.
It’s a setup inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, but with a politically-charged twist: the hunters are wealthy “liberal elites” and their prey is a random assortment of working class folks they’ve designated as “deplorables.”
An admittedly delicious riff on Merian C. Cooper’s The Most Dangerous Game , The Hunt imagines a world in which the worst nightmares of Breitbart readers and QAnon conspiracy theorists are true: there is a cadre of rich elites who look down on gun-clinging and Bible-thumping “hicks” and rednecks—assuming every white Southerner is a racist, and each cowpoke who says “ma’am” is a not-so-secret misogynist.
Which is to say The Hunt fails as a genre exercise too, busy being self-satisfied about its dud point-making to escape the shadow of funner, similarly themed “human hunt” films including Hard Target (1993), the Adkins-starring Hard Target 2 (2016), right back to pre-code The Most Dangerous Game (1932).
Which is to say The Hunt fails as a genre exercise too, busy being self-satisfied about its dud point-making to escape the shadow of funner, similarly themed “human hunt” films including Hard Target (1993), the Adkins-starring Hard Target 2 (2016), right back to pre-code The Most Dangerous Game (1932).
Richard Connell’s story, The Most Dangerous Game , has inspired movies from the literal 1932 adaptation to ‘90s hits Hard Target and Surviving the Game .
There’s usually some sociopolitical element involved—whether it’s about class commentary of HARD TARGET or SURVIVING THE GAME, or fascistic oppression like in TURKEY SHOOT, or commentary on government corruption that the Battle Royale novel utilizes or an indictment of the media as in the BATTLE ROYALE film.
The plot is based on a 1924 short story, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, which has gone through multiple adaptations ( Hard Target , Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity ) and parodies over the past century.
The initial plot dynamics are right out of The Most Dangerous Game meets Hard Target playbook.
Perhaps the umpteenth retelling of the short story The Most Dangerous Game (our favorite adaption: the '90s flick Surviving the Game , where Ice-T gets hunted by Rutger Hauer and Gary Busey?), Hunt comes to us courtesy of producer and TV impresario Damon Lindelof, who wrote the script with Nick Cuse (son of frequent collaborator Carlton Cuse).
Here are the basics: A group of super rich elite-types round up a dozen rednecks to kill for sport, "The Most Dangerous Game"-style (or "Surviving the Game," if you prefer your references through Ice-T movies).
Richard Connell’s story, The Most Dangerous Game , has inspired movies from the literal 1932 adaptation to ‘90s hits Hard Target and Surviving the Game .
Past examples include "Surviving the Game," a 1994 movie in which a homeless man (Ice-T) becomes the unwitting prey for a bunch of wealthy hunters.
The one mediating figure between these starkly opposed camps is, amusingly enough, an ex-National Guard, Dale (Steve Mokate), who claims to have worked as a trainer on the 2003 Bruce Willis war movie Tears of the Sun !
Pop culture references from Ava Duvernay to Tears of the Sun (2003) earn laughs as do exchanges about guns and problematic representation.
The script—adapted by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse from the nearly century-old short story "The Most Dangerous Game"—is witty and often hilarious, including some outstanding jokes about the action movie Tears of the Sun.
Navy veterans fantasize about their Hannity tell-all interviews while brash billionaire sociopaths are trained by military consultants from Tears Of The Sun .
A few cultural references, to the Bruce Willis movie Tears of the Sun and to Ava DuVernay’s Twitter presence, land because at least they sound specific, instead of like weak imitations of Very Online discourse.
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Even with an impressive Amazonian turn from central star Betty Gilpin as a battle-hardened Southerner, it’s fair to say that The Hunt is following in the footsteps of a different tradition—chiefly the trend in social satire genre flicks, including Get Out (2017), Ready or Not (2019) and, most obviously considering the shared production house, The Purge (2013- ).
While the hunters have their amusing moments, as when one brags about being Twitter friends with Ava DuVernay, none are sketched with the surgical accuracy of, say, Bradley Whitford’s self-congratulatory patriarch in Get Out (“I’d have voted for Obama a third time if I could!”), or Toni Collette’s Paltrovian Instaguru in Knives Out (“I read a tweet about a New Yorker article about you!”).
Naturally, the project recalls Jordan Peele’s recent “Get Out,” which implicated well-mannered white people in a nefarious plot to steal the brains and skills of unsuspecting African Americans, as well as 1995’s early Cameron Diaz starrer “The Last Supper,” wherein a group of liberals lured contemptible conservatives to dinner, only to poison them when they refused to see reason.
The gonzo violence brings to mind Christopher Smith's 2006 horror comedy Severance and the stinging humour is akin to Jordan Peele's Get Out .
If we hadn’t seen Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” (2017) or “Us” (2019), tagging it as unique, new or groundbreaking might work, but that crossover zone has already been defined and owned.
Naturally, the project recalls Jordan Peele’s recent “Get Out,” which implicated well-mannered white people in a nefarious plot to steal the brains and skills of unsuspecting African Americans, as well as 1995’s early Cameron Diaz starrer “The Last Supper,” wherein a group of liberals lured contemptible conservatives to dinner, only to poison them when they refused to see reason.
It can’t touch the Clinton-era satires The Last Supper (1995) or Citizen Ruth (1996), which succeeded for reasons other than being on “the correct side.”
It’s akin to THE LAST SUPPER, GOD BLESS AMERICA, or THE RUNNING MAN, where it’s meant to build on current situations and blow them up to ridiculous proportions.
The Hunt reminded me, with its human hunting, vicious glee and abundance of hideous deaths, of 2006 British horror comedy Severance .
The gonzo violence brings to mind Christopher Smith's 2006 horror comedy Severance and the stinging humour is akin to Jordan Peele's Get Out .
Even with an impressive Amazonian turn from central star Betty Gilpin as a battle-hardened Southerner, it’s fair to say that The Hunt is following in the footsteps of a different tradition—chiefly the trend in social satire genre flicks, including Get Out (2017), Ready or Not (2019) and, most obviously considering the shared production house, The Purge (2013- ).
On the surface, The Hunt resembles straight-forward hack ’em ups like Blumhouse ‘s The Purge, but Craig Zobel (of Z for Zachariah and Homestar Runner) has a little more on his mind.
( The Hunt comes to us by way of Blumhouse Productions, the company behind movies like The Purge and Get Out. ) Many are gunned down or blown to bits before we even have any sense of who they are.
This is a satirical thriller, in some ways reminiscent of The Purge series, that can’t seem to maintain focus or initiative as it moves along from one scene to the next.
Quite often, when producer Jason Blum presents something controversially topical, we get The Purge franchise.
Throughout The Purge series, the idea of political identity remains a lasting thematic undercurrent, coming to the forefront in obvious fashion in The First Purge, which was marketed with a blatant “Make America Great Again” tip of the hat towards #45 and his followers.
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The film “The Hunt,” not to be confused with the 2012 Danish film of the same name starring Mads Mikkelsen, had been shelved by Universal last year because of sensitivity issues related to the film’s central plot of humans using other humans as prey – nothing new, but back in the day Fay Wray was in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932) or Cornel Wilde was “The Naked Prey” (1965), Charles Whitman had yet to show the world what human-on-human carnage was really about.
The concept is not a new one to fans of the 1965 thriller “The Naked Prey,” or the 1932 action feature “The Most Dangerous Game,” before it (based on the classic 1924 short story of the same name).
After review, The Hunt harks to the Alexander Payne film, Citizen Ruth.
It can’t touch the Clinton-era satires The Last Supper (1995) or Citizen Ruth (1996), which succeeded for reasons other than being on “the correct side.”