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‘The Hunt’: Film Review

An intense, over-the-top satire of partisan politics taken to its most dangerous extreme, Craig Zobel's controversial thriller delivers the excitement, if not necessarily the deeper social critique.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Last summer, even before the public had gotten a chance to see it, humans-hunting-humans thriller “ The Hunt ” became a target for pundits on both sides of the gun control debate, when mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, prompted critics to consider the media’s role in glorifying violence. In response, Universal ripped director Craig Zobel ’s movie from its Sept. 27 release date and rescheduled the thriller for spring 2020, making room for national mourning in the wake of the horrific events, only to turn around and use the controversy as an unconventional marketing hook.

While not nearly as incendiary as the early coverage made it out to be, “The Hunt” gives skeptics ample ammunition to condemn this twisted riff on “The Most Dangerous Game,” in which a posse of heavily armed liberal elites get carried away exercising their Second Amendment rights against a dozen “deplorables” — as the hunters label their prey, adopting Hillary Clinton’s dismissive, dehumanizing term for the “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” contingent whose fringe beliefs have found purchase with President Trump. No matter who you ask, the “right to bear arms” was never intended as justification for Americans to turn their guns against those they disagree with, whereas that’s the premise from which “Lost” creator Damon Lindelof and co-writer Nick Cuse depart here — partisan politics taken to their most irreconcilable extremes — as Zobel proves just the director to execute such a tight, well-oiled shock-a-thon.

Sure enough, Zobel, Lindelof and producer Jason Blum (riding high on last month’s “The Invisible Man”) have wrought a gory, hard-R exploitation movie masquerading as political satire, one that takes unseemly delight in dispatching yahoos on either end of the spectrum via shotgun, crossbow, hand grenade and all manner of hastily improvised weapons. The words “trigger warning” may not have been invented with “The Hunt” in mind, but they’ve seldom seemed more apt in describing a film that stops just shy of fomenting civil war as it pits Left against Right, Blue (bloods) against Red (necks), in a bloody battle royale that reduces both sides to ridiculous caricatures.

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And yet, “The Hunt” is a good deal smarter — and no more outrageous — than most studio horror films, while its political angle at least encourages debate, suggesting that there’s more to this hot potato than mere provocation. Let’s assume we can all agree that there’s too much violence in American movies today. The danger of “The Hunt” isn’t that the project will inspire copycat behavior (the premise is too far-fetched for that), but rather that it drives a recklessly combustible wedge into the tinderbox of extreme partisanship, creating a false equivalency between, say, Whole Foods-shopping white-collar liberals and racist, conspiracy-minded right-wingers.

Back in August 2017, two years before the shootings that put heat on “The Hunt,” Trump sent a troubling message to the whole country when he responded to a murder at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., by insisting that there were “very fine people on both sides.” Zobel and Lindelof explore the opposite view: namely, that the actions and opinions of the two sides can be equally deplorable.

There are no good guys in “The Hunt,” just hunters and hunted, in which both parties are played by character actors whom viewers might recognize from TV. A few have slightly higher profiles (the lefties are led by a lunatic named Athena, stunt-cast with Hilary Swank ), although the movie establishes early on that off-screen status does not confer greater survivability. One of the film’s pranks is to surprise audiences with cleverly timed and diabolically creative “kills” whenever possible, and more than once, faces you may recognize explode right before your eyes, all but splattering the camera in the process. It’s revolting, sure, but nowhere near as upsetting as the “torture porn” genre that preceded Blumhouse’s entry into the horror arena and, frankly, far less offensive than the psychological violence perpetrated by Zobel’s 2012 indie “Compliance,” in which a faceless caller, claiming to be a police officer, convinces a fast-food manager to detain and degrade one of her employees.

Zobel has directed just one feature since then, “Z for Zachariah,” focusing instead on prestige TV, and it’s clear from an early scene aboard a private jet en route to the Manor, where Athena and her guests plan to do their hunting, that the practice has honed his ability to balance between squirm-inducing dialogue and high-stakes suspense. Meanwhile, the film’s plotting is pure Lindelof, who keeps us guessing by dropping clues to “Manorgate,” as the conspiracy surrounding Athena’s activities is referred to among nut-job bloggers like Gary (Ethan Suplee) and Don (Wayne Duvall), only to reveal a more elaborate program than even they could have imagined.

This much “The Hunt” establishes early: Roughly a dozen deplorables (again, the film’s word for them, conveyed via an on-screen text conversation that goes viral among the same network that gave credibility to Pizzagate, prompting a vigilante to take action) are drugged and kidnapped from around the country and flown out to an undisclosed location (not at all where they think). They come to in the middle of a field, where an ominous crate sits. Little by little, using what’s implied to be their limited intellect, they manage to unlock their bite harnesses (a torture porn touch, to be sure) and arm themselves, but it’s not until their unseen hosts start shooting that they put two and two together.

Although the liberals may have the upper hand at first, they’re not any smarter than their quarry, and the movie hooks us by suggesting anything can happen, and following through on that promise with a series of inventive booby traps. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when someone steps on a mine or lands face up in a Viet Cong-style punji trap, Zobel and his visual effects team have answers, relying on a graphic mix of CG and practical gore effects to turn such preposterous situations into genuinely startling moments.

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. (There’s also a soupçon of “MADtv” star Ike Barinholtz’s irreconcilable-differences satire “The Oath,” so it’s fitting that he should appear as one of the hunted here.) But none of those movies took its premise nearly as deep into the realm of horror as Lindelof and Zobel do here, which is the potential advantage of a film that’s rather anemic in its social commentary — there’s not much depth beyond such easy punchlines as a self-hating liberal saying, “White people, we’re the f—in’ worst” — but that delivers on the visceral thrills of trying to survive a rigged game.

As the umpteenth variation on Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” however, “The Hunt” is one of the most effective executions yet (it surpasses the Cannes-laureled “Bacurau,” in theaters now, but drags along too much baggage to best last year’s sleeper-hit “Ready or Not”). Regardless of one’s personal political affiliations, it’s hard not to root for the victims here, and one quickly distinguishes herself from the pack of “Deliverance”-style caricatures: Crystal May Creesy (Betty Gilpin of “Glow”), a MacGyver-skilled military veteran who served in Afghanistan and whose distrust of any and everyone makes her uniquely suited for a final showdown with Athena.

After all the buildup, that scene inevitably disappoints in its attempt to explain its own mythology, though the well-matched womano a womano confrontation between Gilpin and Swank is worth the price of admission. Culturally, it does no one any good to stoke discord between two contentious parties, but when the conflict reduces to one-on-one — and “The Hunt” stops pretending to be a parable about modern politics — it’s easy to appreciate the efficient 90-minute horror-fantasy for what it is: not a model for violent behavior in the real world, but an extreme outlet for pent-up frustrations on both sides.

Reviewed at London Screening Room, March 5, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 90 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release of a Blumhouse production. Producers: Jason Blum, Damon Lindelof. Executive producers: Nick Cuse, Steven R. Molen, Craig Zobel. Co-producer: Jennifer Scudder Trent.
• Crew: Director: Craig Zobel. Screenplay: Damon Lindelof, Nick Cuse. Camera: Darran Tiernan. Editor: Jane Rizzo. Music: Nathan Barr.
• With: Ike Barinholtz, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Hilary Swank , Wayne Duvall, Christopher Berry, Sturgill Simpson, Kate Nowlin, Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Glenn Howerton, Steve Coulter, Dean J. West, Vince Pisani, Teri Wyble, Steve Mokate, Sylvia Grace Crim, Jason Kirkpatrick, Macon Blair, J.C. MacKenzie.

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The Hunt Review: A Sharp, Even-Handed Satire That’s Also Gory Fun

In August 2019, the theatrical release of Craig Zobel’s The Hunt was indefinitely delayed. This was the result of a controversy in the wake of the movie’s first trailer (which admittedly did put an emphasis on the “horror” side of the horror/comedy), and the suggestion that “Hollywood” was pushing a blockbuster advocating violence against conservatives. Of course, all of these various attacks came from people who hadn’t actually seen the film, and the reactions were entirely based on the limited footage released and the studio-published plot description.

Now it’s almost exactly seven months later, and while nothing in the world has really changed, and nothing in the movie has changed, The Hunt is arriving in theaters nationwide. That fact alone makes one wonder what the point of the controversy/delay was in the first place, but there is an extra kicker: not only is the film a smart, even-handed satire that plays no favorites when poking fun, the way that the narrative surrounding the release ultimately lines up with one of the core messages of the story is so deeply ironic that it is essentially meta.

Written by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, and initially inspired by the wild conspiracy theories that populate right wing message boards, The Hunt brings one of these radical ideas to life with the execution of an event dubbed Manorgate. Orchestrated by the mysterious billionaire CEO Athena (Hilary Swank), the “game” finds a group of strangers kidnapped, drugged, and let loose on the property of a vast estate where they are hunted by Athena’s rich, liberal friends. None of them have any specific idea as to why they were targeted, though they all generally possess conservative values.

While just about everybody is sincerely freaked out and looking for an exit, the only one keeping her wits about her is the enigmatic Crystal a.k.a. Snowball (Betty Gilpin). Of those being hunted, she is uniquely skilled to not only adapt to her environment, but also take the fight to the hunters.

The Hunt finds ways to both be grounded in the real world, and impressively silly.

The Hunt is a film that definitely benefits from having an audience that knows as little about it as possible going in, as the twists and surprises it has in store come flying at you immediately, and it’s fascinating to simply let the movie reveal itself to you. A big part of what makes it so compelling is a unique approach to world-building, which both leans into the boundary-pushing horror/comedy elements while still keeping a foot firmly planted in reality. As everything unfolds, it’s easy to recognize the news stories that clearly inspired the larger ideas behind the plot (some of them specifically namedropped), and at the same time it’s clear that Craig Zobel, Damon Lindelof, and Nick Cuse have a blast taking those ideas to their most extreme points without ever breaking them.

To that end, this is a movie that definitely doesn’t lean away from its R-rating, which is something that winds up serving both aspects of the tone throughout. The first act alone, featuring the start of Manorgate, is a fantastic representation of this. Put into the minds of the characters that find themselves waking up on the ground gagged in a mysterious location, you immediately sympathize with the terror that they are experiencing – but then once things start going absolutely haywire The Hunt starts to have its fun. In certain moments it causes you to start laughing simply by throwing a series of surprises directly into your face, and in others it’s about a certain level of gratuitousness at which you can’t help but giggle.

If you have strong political views, but can also laugh at yourself, you’ll enjoy The Hunt.

Like any horror movie or any comedy, there is a subjective nature to the material, as not everybody digs on bloody violence, and everybody’s interpretation of the word “funny” is different – but what’s particularly interesting about The Hunt is how it engages with an individual audience member’s political leanings. While the controversy surrounding the film suggests particular bias, the reality is that this movie is for everybody, and particularly the politically invested… provided that they have the capacity to laugh at themselves. It takes aim at much of the ridiculousness that can be found in both right wing and left wing ideologies, but more importantly it targets commonalities between the two sides and satirically exposes them, allowing the movie-goers an interesting opportunity for self-reflection.

There are certain moments where it tries a bit too hard, particularly when throwing around zeitgeist terms that have a tendency to clang and feel unnatural. Far more often than not, however, it clicks, and those who allow themselves to be open to it may even gain an certain amount of perspective they may not have had prior to seeing the movie – which is truly one of the greatest gifts of satire.

Betty Gilpin delivers an excellent performance as part of a well-utilized ensemble.

The cherry on top of the Hunt sundae is that audiences are treated to an amazing big screen breakthrough performance from Betty Gilpin. Fans of shows like Nurse Jackie and GLOW are certainly already well-aware of what the actor can do, as she has been doing great work for years, but she is given the opportunity to shine as Crystal in a way we haven’t seen before in features. It’s a touch strange, as the character is purposefully maintained as an enigma throughout the film, but she is captivating from the moment she is introduced – seen from afar getting her bearings by creating a makeshift compass with a pin, a leaf, and a pool of water. Over the course of the movie we only learn scant details about her past, but she makes for a compelling heroine with an iron-tight grip on her emotions and awesome fortitude.

While revealing too much about them would be a disservice to The Hunt and your experience watching the movie, the rest of the ensemble is also outstanding and well-utilized – not to mention that any character actor geek is going to have a field day simply identifying the recognizable faces. Very much delivering on the unexpected, Emma Roberts and Ike Barinholtz are standouts among the supporting cast with roles guaranteed to surprise, and Hilary Swank ’s Athena winds up being a fantastically layered antagonist, but we also get some fun times with Ethan Suplee, Glenn Howerton, Amy Madigan, Wayne Duvall, Macon Blair, and more in diverse and surprising roles. At the end of the day, though, this is Betty Gilpin’s show, and she rules.

There is a weird number of people who seem to think that they have The Hunt totally figured out sight unseen, but it should be made clear: they don’t. What this movie is actually about is the danger and consequences that come with jumping to extreme conclusions without sufficient evidence, and that fact alone will hopefully get some blind detractors to purchase a ticket and give it a chance. Provided you go into it with openness and are willing to hear what it has to say, you won’t be disappointed.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

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There's an odd scene early on in HBO's Watchmen where an episode of an in-show drama, American Hero Story , is proceeded by a comedically gratuitous trigger warning. The Hunt , a controversial Blumhouse horror-thriller that was cancelled after the mass shootings in Ohio and Texas last summer before being rescheduled, was co-written by Watchmen head honcho Damon Lindelof and strikes a satirical tone similar to that scene. But if that brief attempt to, basically, troll people who call for detailed content summaries seemed awkward juxtaposed with the series' powerful story about racial injustice, the approach feels all the clunkier when carried over to a movie about the toxicity of so much of today's online political discourse. A better survival thriller than social commentary via the horror genre, The Hunt only just holds together thanks to Betty Gilpin's virtuoso lead turn.

The Hunt revolves around a group of twelve strangers who wake up in a clearing, no idea where they are or how they got there. But just as they've barely unlocked their mouth gags and stumbled upon a crate full of weapons, bullets and arrows start raining down on the unwitting victims, who quickly realize they're being hunted for sport. As fate would have it, the hunters get more than they bargained for when one of the hunted, a woman named Crystal (Gilpin), turns out to be a highly-skilled and intelligent survivalist. One by one, Crystal starts killing her attackers, gradually working her way up to Athena (Hilary Swank), the mysterious individual who organized "The Hunt" to begin with.

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On the surface, Lindelof - working with his frequent co-writer Nick Cuse and The Leftovers director Craig Zobel - has crafted a loose re-imagining of The Most Dangerous Game , Richard Connell's classic 1924 short story about wealthy people hunting those poorer and less fortunate than them for sport. In motion, though, The Hunt functions as a parable that imagines what could happen if the way liberals and conservatives dehumanize one another when they discuss politics online spilled over into the real world, to the point where they're literally killing those on the opposite side of the fence. The problem is the film doesn't want to examine how people form their identities around their political beliefs with any real depth, much less delve into the factors that've led to the modern political divide. Instead, the majority of the characters in The Hunt  are introduced as stereotypes and never evolve beyond that. As a result, the film typically plays out like an overlong SNL  parody of a horror-thriller where the joke involves people being concerned about political correctness or spouting conspiracy theories while either committing homicide or running for their lives. Save for the occasional amusing moment, this one-note gag runs out of gas pretty quickly, even for a film as short as this.

Toothless satire aside, The Hunt does enjoy some success as a subversive take on the Final Girl trope that's reminiscient of more recent horror-comedy-thrillers like You're Next and Ready or Not . That's largely due to Gilpin, who readily demonstrates her action star bonafides while also showcasing her sense of dry comedic delivery as Crystal, a hardened and capable heroine drawn in the style of the older Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley (with a dash of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, no less). Swank gets far less screen time as Athena, yet the Oscar winner seems to relish the opportunity to portray a ridiculous antagonist - her tongue embedded firmly in her cheek - and participate in easily the best-staged and dynamically photographed fight sequence in the whole film. Zobel and his cinematographer Darran Tiernan ( Westworld ) do an otherwise respectable job with their sequencing and shooting the action in a fluid manner, even if they are guilty of compensating for the The Hunt 's low-budget aesthetic by throwing extra guts and gore at the camera.

By the time The Hunt is over, it becomes clearer why the film's recent marketing has leaned into its pre-release controversy as much as it has. Yes, because there's no such thing as bad publicity, but also because it's frankly more interesting than anything the actual movie has to offer. As a riff on The Most Dangerous Game , it's bloody enough to give gorehounds their fix, with a badass Betty Gilpin performance to match. But as a piece of timely social and political commentary, The Hunt is as meaningless as dismissing both sides of an issue as equally bad - regardless of the issue - and saying we should work together to solve our problems while also refusing to explore why everyone's so angry to begin with. Hopefully, some audiences will get more from it than that; as for everyone else, you probably don't need a satire as flimsy as this to convince you that toxic online discourse is bad.

NEXT: Watch The Hunt Trailer

The Hunt  is now playing in U.S. theaters. It is 90 minutes long and is rated R for strong bloody violence, and language throughout.

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‘The Hunt’ Review: The Culture War, With Heavy Casualties

Betty Gilpin battles the snowflakes in a bloody satire of polarized America.

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‘The Hunt’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director craig zobel narrates a sequence from his horror satire starring betty gilpin..

Hi, my name is Craig Zobel, and I directed ‘The Hunt.’ “What?” The scene you’re about to watch is a scene between Ma and Pa, played by Amy Madigan and Reed Birney, in which they’re cleaning up after having just killed one of the people they’re hunting, and this is really one of the first times in the story that you get to hear kind of the reasons why this one set of people might be hunting this other set of people. “Those people?” “Sorry. Black people.” “African-Americans.” “Honey, it’s—” “Privilege, Julius.” “It’s perfectly fine to call them black again.” [LAUGHS] “According to who?” “NPR.” Our hope in the scene was that we would, through comedy, be able to expose one side’s assumptions about the other side’s beliefs, as well as mocking the hunters at the same time. “You there?” “Hey! We’re here. We got three of them— Molly, Moses, and Mr. Whimper.” “Yeah, great. Liberty got—” Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, the screenwriters’ screenplay pokes a lot of fun at liberals, and this is one of the scenes that kind of we first really lean into that. And this is really the kind of the first scene in the film that the kind of horror and action that you have been seeing truly is colored by— “Honey, that’s poison!” —a sense of satire and comedy. “You— you rigged the soda?” “No. There are 43 grams of sugar in that bottle.” “Oh, good god, Miranda, you really scared me.” “I am not going to apologize for caring.” The hunters have been playing a pretty elaborate game, and they have actually constructed this convenience store as a trap in order to catch the hunted. So everything in it has been designed to be appealing to a group of people that they feel like they aren’t a part of, and we did a lot of that kind of in the production design of the convenience store. And then, of course, this new person appears, and this is Betty Gilpin playing the role of Crystal, who turns out to be the main character in the film. This is kind of the first time that you’re really interacting with her in the story. You’ve seen her once or twice before, but she’s been kind of an outsider on the edge. As she comes into this trap, this fake gas station, we see her process who these people are and quickly deduce that they are, in fact, some of the people that are hunting her, and that Crystal is one step ahead of everyone. “Everything O.K.?” “I lost my wallet.” “Oh.” “It’s for emergencies.” “You want some matches with that?” I was really lucky in that I had cast Betty prior to casting Reed Birney in the film. But once I cast Reed, I discovered that Betty and Reed had been in a play together, where it was just a two-person play with the two of them before. I was unaware of that when I cast the role, but it really added a lot because they were able to immediately have a shorthand. ”—Arkansas. Is there anything else?” [GRUNTS] [GUNSHOT] [PA SCREAMS]

By A.O. Scott

Late last summer, “The Hunt,” a mean little horror/satire from the clever devils at Blumhouse, looked like a culture war casualty. The movie’s fanciful premise — that a bunch of blue-state Americans were killing some of their red-state fellow citizens for sport — upset a few people who hadn’t seen it and who may have been looking for something to get upset about. Can you imagine: A liberal Hollywood blueprint for anti-conservative violence!

You can’t, because it isn’t. As a rule, movies take the side of the prey, not the predators, and American liberalism survives partly by poking fun at its own. After mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso inflamed the political atmosphere even further, Universal decided to postpone the release of “The Hunt,” a response that dovetails, oddly enough, with a plot point involving corporate reactions to politically uncomfortable “optics.” There’s also a lot in the movie about how online hysteria bleeds into reality, which makes it seem at once prescient and redundant

Now that we are all freaking out about other things, “The Hunt” can be seen for what it is: an almost-successful attempt to do for class and ideology what Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” (also a Blumhouse production) did for racism. That’s the setup, anyway, and to say much more about the twists and turns that follow would be to ruin a few surprises, and perhaps also pre-empt some disappointment. I’ll do my best, but proceed with caution in any case.

What you’ve heard about the movie is more or less true. A cabal of “elites” — Champagne-drinking, private-jet-flying snoots who hate the (unnamed) president — round up a bunch of “deplorables,” who are drugged, gagged and dumped in a field. (I’m using the terminology preferred by the characters and the filmmakers. Craig Zobel directed, working from a script by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof). A crate appears containing a live pig and a cache of deadly weapons, just to make things sporting. But the unseen hunters, using bullets, grenades, booby traps and arrows, quickly cull the deplorable herd in explosions of blood, brains and viscera.

Some of the hunted are played by recognizable actors — Ike Barinholtz, Ethan Suplee, Emma Roberts, among others — which may fool you into thinking you can pick out the designated survivors. (Later, an actual Oscar winner shows up as the head of the hunting party). It doesn’t quite work that way, but I don’t think it gives too much away to note that you will end up spending a lot of time with Betty Gilpin’s Crystal, a Mississippian with impressive combat skills. She isn’t like the others, some of whom know exactly what’s going on. She talks less, notices more and seems to carry a different kind of anger.

Rage — shared by characters on both sides, even as they direct it at each other — is what “The Hunt” is all about. Anger is the source of its humor and its horror, both of which are fairly effective. The fights and shootouts are brisk and brutal. The dialogue pops with inventive profanity and familiar varieties of name-calling and woke-speak. Zobel, two of whose earlier features ( “Great World of Sound” and “Compliance” ) were shrewd, showy studies of power and deceit, is skilled at keeping the viewer off balance, in a state of queasy, slightly guilty anticipation for the nastiness to come. Cuse and Lindelof, recent collaborators on the HBO series “Watchmen” and “The Leftovers,” are slumming a little in genre-movie territory, and maybe also trolling some of their fans.

The targets are easy and the caricatures are blunt, but the filmmakers aren’t inflaming passions so much as soothing them with laughter and mayhem. They’re trying to make a movie that everyone will like about how Americans hate one another.

That’s a tricky needle to thread, and “The Hunt” manages the trick by being a good deal less provocative than its subject matter. Its satirical fire is aimed not from the left or the right, but at both (not quite symmetrically) from an unmapped middle, an unpolarized, perhaps imaginary place from which plagues can be called down on both partisan houses.

Not that actual political parties are mentioned, part of an overall strategy of coyness when it comes to contentious real-world subjects. Some of the deplorables wear baseball caps, but none say “Make America Great Again.” Nearly everyone onscreen is white, which the movie deals with in the way that the Oscars often do, by offering up a few self-conscious jokes. The migrant crisis in Europe pops into view and then fades away again.

What “The Hunt” expresses — as distinct from what it depicts — isn’t vengeful intolerance or self-pitying resentment, but frustration. It amounts to a protest against the hyper-politicization of everything, an attempt to reclaim popular culture as a demilitarized zone in the midst of our collective rhetorical forever war. This is admirable, but by the end it also feels halfhearted, as what looked like a dystopian fantasy turns into an exercise in wishful thinking.

Rated R. They don’t call them red-blooded Americans for nothing. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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The Hunt Review

30 Nov 2012

115 minutes

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‘the hunt’: film review.

Betty Gilpin and Hilary Swank star in 'The Hunt,' Craig Zobel's controversy-plagued thriller about elites stalking "deplorables."

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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There has always been something innately political about Richard Connell’s oft-filmed 1924 short story  The Most Dangerous Game , about people hunting down other humans for sport, but never has politics played such an intrinsic and motivating thematic role in the yarn as it does in  The Hunt . 

This exceedingly violent, conspiratorially charged and guiltily engaging action melodrama ultimately pits woman against woman in an almost farcically over-the-top death match, and what it sets out to say about our currently polarized society will be swallowed by some and spit out by others. Originally set for release last September but abruptly cancelled due to two mass shootings, in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, in August, this action-drenched roller coaster of a film tries to have its cake and eat it, too, when it comes to generating a tidal wave of violence — but it undeniably delivers the goods when it comes to action and impudence.

Release date: Mar 13, 2020

The Hunt  wouldn’t be what it is without its leading lady, Crystal, played by Betty Gilpin of Netflix’s  GLOW.   Crystal is one of the hunted, an intended victim, but she endures by having her antenna up at all times, by never believing authority or someone else’s version of reality. She’s learned to be a brutalist, to keep her guard up, to never trust. For good measure, she’s also tough as tree bark.

Game for whatever the script throws at her, Gilpin pulls off the action moves, of which there are plenty, with sly elan. Crucially, she has a brazen, almost crazy side to her, a wide-eyed glee that can take over her whole personality for a spell. She can be scary.

Sometimes this is done for effect. On other occasions, she appears to get off on what she’s doing — killing members of the underdog team that’s supposedly taking on the quasi-fascists — in ways that make her eyes pop and roll in mock astonishment that sharply reminds one of Jodie Comer’s dazzling turn as the equally lethal Villanelle in  Killing Eve.

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'the hunt' is back on: universal sets release for controversial elites vs. "deplorables" satire (exclusive).

The killing starts on a private plane and accelerates in a forest where the chosen “game” find themselves with locked metal bits in their mouths. So quickly are several sacrificed on the field of battle that it seems like little more than target practice for rich folks who may have paid for the privilege but obviously also feel that they’re doing society a service by eliminating a few more “deplorables.”

Characters who have only just been introduced are knocked off minutes later, and it’s clear that the filmmakers have spent an unusual amount of time dreaming up novel ways to maim, immobilize, fool and, when the time comes, obliterate those whose time has come. Crystal’s secret is that she never lets down her guard, and while she might do something foolish from time to time, she never forgets that this is an unforgiving world, with her life at stake at every turn. 

Writers Nick Cuse ( Leftovers, Lost ) and Damon Lindelof ( Lost , The Leftovers , Watchmen ) and director Craig Zobel ( Compliance, Z for Zachariah ) throw everything into the pot here and serve up something that — while neither deep nor terribly sensical — makes its points and centers on a main character who, inspiringly, remains one step ahead of all the affiliated hotshot guys in the story who think pretty highly of themselves as well. 

As the characters make their progress through a torn-up society, Zobel keeps the viewer off-balance with a series of encounters, some of which become confrontations and others of which turn deadly very quickly. The filmmakers go out of their way to surprise, to not allow their story to become predictable or conventional, to maintain a spirit of audacity. This doesn’t work all the time, but enough — and when the creators brazenly flip the chronology to provide an all-out mano a mano between Crystal and the boss of it all, Athena ( Hilary Swank ), the result is a prolonged and extremely violent face-off between the two women, the likes of which has rarely been seen before. It’s quite a scene.

The impulses that drove the filmmakers to channel their concerns about class power and conflict into a hoary old story like this clearly derive from widening societal divisions, political assumptions, the ruthlessness of the ruling order and the stealth with which the latter both hides and exercises its power. If these issues seem a bit too weighty to be resolved by a knock-down, drag-out fight between two women in a high-tech mansion, it’s also true that, toward the end, the filmmakers’ attitude becomes overly glib and pranky; there’s a notably serious gap between the gravity of the subject and the horror/action manner in which it’s presented. It’s as if the creators, after trotting out their profound concerns about the direction of society, suddenly felt the need to fess up to the fact that, “Hey, we’re kinda worried about the world, but we’re just goofy genre guys at heart.”

Production company: Blumhouse Productions Distributor: Universal Cast: Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Ike Barinholtz, Wayne Duvall, Ethan Suplee, Emma Roberts, Chris Berry, Sturgill Simpson, Kate Nowlin, Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Glenn Howerton, Steve Coulter Director: Craig Zobel Screenwriters: Nick Cuse, Damon Lindelof Producers: Jason Blum , Damon Lindelof Executive producers: Craig Zobel, Nick Cuse, Steven R. Molen, Couper Samuelson, Jeanette Volturno Director of photography: Darran Tiernan Production designer: Matthew Munn Costume designer: David Tabbert Editor: Jane Rizzo Music: Nathan Barr Casting: Terri Taylor

Rated R, 99 minutes

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Common sense media reviewers.

Intensely gory but fiendishly funny dark political satire.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

No clear-cut message, but movie will give viewers

Crystal is admirable in the way that she's self-su

Extreme satirical violence, with heavy blood and g

Brief objectification of a woman wearing a reveali

Constant extreme language includes "f--k," "f--kin

Mention of Google. Pabst Blue Ribbon sign hanging

Cigarette smoking. Characters sip expensive champa

Parents need to know that The Hunt is a dark, extremely violent satire about a group of wealthy, elite liberals who hunt and kill a group of rural conservatives. It's incredibly graphic, with tons of blood and gore, exploding heads, bodies getting ripped in half, eyeballs being yanked out, etc…

Positive Messages

No clear-cut message, but movie will give viewers plenty to think, talk about. Guns and violence are a huge theme, as are ideas of pre-judging people, creating stereotypes, acting through hate and fear, rather than understanding and sympathy.

Positive Role Models

Crystal is admirable in the way that she's self-sufficient and highly resourceful, as well as strong and smart, but she also kills ruthlessly without consequences, and her character's past and motivations are kept under wraps. Whenever anyone asks her anything, a typical answer is "I don't care."

Violence & Scariness

Extreme satirical violence, with heavy blood and gore, many, many deaths. Characters kill each other ruthlessly without consequences. Stabbing in neck with pen, spurting blood. A high-heel shoe to the eyeball results in the entire eyeball, plus the optic nerve, being pulled out of a skull. Heads and bodies explode. Body ripped in half, entrails hanging out. Body impaled by spike. Head run over by car. Neck sliced. Pig shot and killed. Lots and lots of guns, plus grenades, knives, bows and arrows. Martial arts fighting, punching, kicking, etc. Landmines. Poison gas. Poisoned food. Characters hit with blunt objects. Characters gagged. Fall from height. Cauterizing cut with cooking torch.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief objectification of a woman wearing a revealing outfit.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Constant extreme language includes "f--k," "f--king," "s--t," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "c--k," "d--k," "bitch," "son of a bitch," "piss," and "goddamn," and "Christ" and "Jesus Christ" (used as exclamation).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mention of Google. Pabst Blue Ribbon sign hanging in store.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Cigarette smoking. Characters sip expensive champagne. Characters mention being drugged.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Hunt is a dark, extremely violent satire about a group of wealthy, elite liberals who hunt and kill a group of rural conservatives. It's incredibly graphic, with tons of blood and gore, exploding heads, bodies getting ripped in half, eyeballs being yanked out, etc. People (and a pig) are killed by guns, knives, arrows, and many other means, and there are extended fight scenes. Language is also extra-strong, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," and many more. A female character is briefly objectified while wearing a revealing outfit, but otherwise there's no sexual content. Characters smoke cigarettes, sip champagne, and mention being drugged. Despite the controversy around the movie's original, canceled 2019 release, it's actually well-made and clever, skewering everyone equally. Hilary Swank and Betty Gilpin co-star. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (8)
• Kids say (10)

Based on 8 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In THE HUNT, a woman named Athena ( Hilary Swank ) texts with a group of liberal friends. They're discussing "the hunt," in which they'll go out and kill a group of "deplorables." Later, a man wakes up to find himself on a plane. The well-dressed people he sees tell him he "woke up too soon" and kill him. Then more people wake up, gagged, in the woods. They discover a crate full of guns and other weapons -- and, before long, they're being shot at and killed. Only Crystal ( Betty Gilpin ) seems wise enough to stay a jump ahead of her tormenters. Using her wits and some kind of elite training, she fights her way to the end of the puzzle and faces off with its chief architect, Athena. But nothing is quite as it seems.

Is It Any Good?

Insanely gory but also fiendishly funny, this clever dark satire takes a familiar scenario and uses it to boldly skewer both red and blue Americans, painting both sides as equally absurd. The Hunt is brightly, cheerfully in control of its situation, like a master comedian working the room. It seems to have done what few others could even imagine, which is to correctly parody the attributes of both extremes of American political ideologies without anger or hate. It merely finds everyone preposterous.

Director Craig Zobel , who also questioned the worst of human behavior in Compliance , and co-writers Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof (of the Watchmen TV series), start The Hunt with a series of shocks. They break all the rules and let us know that anything is possible, that whatever is going to happen will likely happen before we're ready for it. The movie is smooth, fast-moving, and intricately designed. If it has a flaw, it lies in Gilpin's Crystal. She's amazingly cool, resourceful, and appealing in her slow, thoughtful way of speaking. But she tips the balance of the political satire, making it not quite an equal roasting of both sides. However, she's so fascinating -- and mysterious -- that it's easy to forgive.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Hunt 's violence . How did it affect you? Is it meant to be shocking or thrilling? What's the difference? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

Does the movie equally satirize both sides of the American political spectrum? What does it ultimately say? Does it have anything positive to offer?

Is the movie funny? What exactly is "dark humor," and why do we sometimes laugh at things that are otherwise so disturbing?

Is Crystal a role model ? Is she objectified?

Do you think the controversy around the film's original release was warranted? Why or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 13, 2020
• On DVD or streaming : March 20, 2020
• Cast : Betty Gilpin , Hilary Swank , Emma Roberts
• Director : Craig Zobel
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 89 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong bloody violence, and language throughout
• Last updated : April 28, 2023

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Horror

Content Caution

In Theaters

• March 13, 2020
• Betty Gilpin as Crystal; Ike Barinholtz as Staten Island; Wayne Duvall as Don; Ethan Suplee as Gary; Emma Roberts as Yoga Pants; Christopher Berry; Sturgill Simpson as Vanilla Nice; Kate Nowlin as Big Red; Amy Madigan as Ma; Reed Birney as Pop; Glenn Howerton as Richard; Steve Coulter as The Doctor

Home Release Date

• March 20, 2020
• Craig Zobel

Distributor

• Universal Pictures

Movie Review

The attack was as swift as it was brutal. It didn’t matter that they didn’t really know anything about their adversary: What they thought they knew was enough. Death was sudden and gruesome.

No, no, no. I’m not talking about the liberal elites hunting down their “deplorable” quarry in The Hunt . I’m talking about how people responded to rumors of the actual movie last September.

The Hunt was originally supposed to be released on Sept. 27, 2019. Two key factors “killed” the film, at least temporarily. First were two horrific mass shootings in early August (in Dayton, Ohio, and in El Paso, Texas, respectively). The second was the shellacking the film received from some prominent conservatives, including some tweets from a fairly famous Twitter user. Some assumed that The Hunt was a shocking, liberal elite revenge fantasy.

Few had seen the film at that point, of course. Many who had seen it suggested that the satirical horror film was actually taking on those liberal elites more than anybody. No matter, though: Some suggested the backlash was just too great for The Hunt to survive.  “I believe this movie will never be released,” Republican strategist John Brabender told ITK .

But anyone familiar with Hollywood horror stories knows that no antagonist is ever truly dead. And so The Hunt shambled out of its open grave and is now in theaters.

So now that we’ve seen it, what’s the movie actually about? Well, technically, it’s … um, about liberal elites hunting down Jesus-loving, gun-toting MAGA-hat-wearing conservatives. But this satire’s own quarry isn’t so easy to pin down. It seems that in this hunt, it’s open season on everyone.

Positive Elements

We see a few of the hunted try to save each other with mostly dispiriting results.

Spiritual Elements

As one of the hunted cowers before his would-be killers, he tells one of them that they should “go to h—.” The hunter tells him that he doesn’t believe in such a place—being a part, he says snidely, of the “godless elite.” That scene is one of a handful of disparaging comments we hear uttered about faith and religion, especially Christianity, by the hunters.

Crystal and Gary, two of the hunted, hop on a train and discover the box car hides a family of apparent Islamic refugees. Gary believes the family are actors (including the baby one carries), and he snidely calls one of them “Muhammed.” When Crystal and Don (another hunted couple) pop a trunk and find a body, inside, Don misuses Jesus’ name in shock and dismay. “Nope,” Crystal says. “It’s this guy.”

Sexual Content

Hunters discuss how one of them visited Haiti on a supposed humanitarian mission and got a woman pregnant there. “I hope she was pro-choice,” another hunter quips. We hear more cynicism about the man’s Haiti trip and some more jokes about his, ahem, extracurricular activities there.

Crystal’s top reveals a bit of her torso. An online video has some imagined sexual subtext to it.

Violent Content

Before moviegoers have even warmed up their theater seats, someone gets stabbed in the neck with a pen (blood spurts out of the severed artery) and has his eye gouged out with a stiletto heel. (We see the orbital organ, including the grotesque optic nerve, hanging from the shoe.) And really, it just goes downhill from there.

Someone falls into a pit filled with spikes and is impaled. Two people die via landmine: One essentially evaporates, while the other—or, at least, part of the other—gets hurled 20 or 30 feet away. Someone finds the victim, still living, with just the top half intact; entrails and organs hang out of her torso and waist. She still has the wherewithal to grab a gun and finish herself off, though. Two people are stabbed in the gut with a Cuisinart blade. A man has half of his head disgustingly blown off. (He’s just one of several people who die—often bloodily and gorily—via bullets or shotgun shells.)

Someone is killed after having his throat cut: Blood, of course, sprays cinematically. Another victim is shot with several arrows. (He runs with the weapons still sticking in various parts of his body, though the arrow that pierces his neck finally brings him down.) Someone’s skewered through the middle, but then survives long enough to be shot in the head. At least two people get blown to bits by grenades (though one such death, miraculously, takes place off-camera). Someone’s head is run over by a car. A victim is poisoned via powdered donut. Someone’s body is discovered with a knife sticking out of his forehead. A guy is shot, then battered with a pipe, then shot again. A man dies from some sort of gas. A champagne bottle is broken and used as a weapon.

We see some pretty frenetic fighting, with folks getting punched and kicked and hit in the privates. Someone’s stabbed in the shoulder with what might be a cooking thermometer. Trucks are wired to blow up. Blood spills, sprays and is sometimes literally mopped up. An innocent, surprisingly well-dressed pig gets gunned down.

We read a violent text message string referencing the Manor, where “deplorables” are hunted. We hear a really violent children’s story—a variation on the tortoise and the hare. A bullet hole in someone’s shoulder is painfully prodded.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear nearly 90 f-words (including several using the word “mother”) and about 15 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n”, “h—” and “p-ss”. God’s name is misused about 10 times (at least three of those with the word “d–n”), while Jesus’ name is abused another 10 times or so (often paired with the f-word). There’s a reference to the “n-word,” though that slur is not actually spoken. We see a middle finger flashed in a picture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Someone discusses dealing with their problems through drinking and drugs. A rich guy in an airplane demands some champagne and discusses, at some length, a trio of $250,000 bottles of the bubbly. Someone rescues a bottle of very old champagne from certain destruction.

We hear that someone’s father was a methamphetamine dealer and addict, and that her mother died from a drug overdose. Someone guzzles champagne from the bottle. A couple of people smoke, and one discovers a ruse because she knows the price of cigarettes in Arkansas.

Other Negative Elements

The hunters of The Hunt come across as pampered, inconsiderate jerks. For instance, one taunts the flight attendant serving him—asking her whether she’s ever had caviar (she hasn’t), then asking her to take his away because he just had some “last night.” We hear some debate about whether calling someone “black” is racist (National Public Radio says it’s OK, one says; but NPR is staffed primarily by white people, another counters), or whether wearing a kimono is cultural appropriation. We hear references to several political issues and some hostile (and sometimes profane) references to a certain resident of the White House.

Some of the hunted, though, are painted a bit like the hunters would paint them. Several spout conspiracy theories: One claims to be an expert because he exposes “truth” through his podcast (one with the word “Confederate” in its title) and comes across as fairly racist. Several people are accused of spreading misinformation online.

A woman drops her drawers and urinates by a set of train tracks. A man urinates by a tree.

Satire is hard to pull off in this touchy age of ours. We live in an era of Twitter rage and trigger warnings—some of which may be warranted, perhaps. But it can still have a chilling impact on public discourse and debate. In our society’s laudable desire to call out wrongdoing, some would say we’re tickling an Orwellian-like impulse for “right thinking,” a homogeny of acceptable expression that, ironically, involves very little thinking at all.

The Hunt leans hard into those Orwellian themes, complete with shirt-wearing pigs (a reference to George Orwell’s Animal Farm ). That gives The Hunt a more rightward tilt: The conservative “hunted” suffer their share of abuse in the movie, but it’s the progressive hunters who are most relentlessly (if not always effectively) mocked.

But ultimately, the movie’s not aiming at them, either. The ultimate quarry here seems to is society itself.

The problem isn’t that conservatives are “deplorable” or liberals are laughable: It’s that society as a whole can’t stop divvying them up as such. We (using the term loosely and broadly) look at someone, check a series of boxes based on how they look and talk and dress and vote and assume that we know them. The fact that so many people in this movie aren’t exactly who they seem appears itself to be a meta-statement about our culture today.

Those of us who call ourselves evangelical Christians understand how “judgey” the culture can be: We’ve been judged plenty. But let’s face it: We can easily judge those who don’t share our convictions just as quickly, and just as harshly.

Of course, there’s another irony lurking here: As a movie critic, it’s actually my job to be judgmental. But because I’ve spent plenty of time with this particular movie—I sat through the whole thing, in fact—I feel that I’m not rushing to judgment.

Whatever point The Hunt may want to make, or whatever value it might hope to have, is pretty much obliterated by its violence, just like so many of its characters. The blood and gore here are meant to be shocking and, at times, even funny—but instead they’re just gross. And that’s a strange and undercutting dichotomy in a film that encourages us to treat one another as people, and then treat its own people like so much meat.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Movie Review: The Hunt (2020)

• Vincent Gaine
• Movie Reviews
• --> March 12, 2020

The horror genre relies, to an extent, on the utilization of familiar tropes. The use of these tropes can reward and subvert expectations, and how these tropes are used contributes to the film’s effectiveness. Audience familiarity is both an opportunity and a difficulty for filmmakers: Give the audience what they want and they welcome it, but provide too much and familiarity starts to breed contempt. Striking this balance tends to separate the memorable from the forgettable, and Blumhouse Productions has contributed several films of the memorable variety. The Hunt , sadly, is likely to be forgotten as quickly as the things you scroll past on Twitter.

The Hunt is a knowing film that utilizes common tropes of the horror genre. A common starting trope is a disparate group of characters. These characters might be attractive teens as in the case of most slashers from “Halloween” to “Scream,” but this is not essential. Varied groups are trapped in siege horrors like “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Mist,” or in haunted house environments from “The Haunting” to “Alien.” The location leads to another key trope: Uncanny surroundings, the threat of a space that is both familiar and unfamiliar. A motel in “Psycho,” ships in “Thirteen Ghosts” and “Deep Rising,” family homes in “The Exorcist,” “You’re Next” and “ Color Out Of Space ” all begin as safe places but quickly devolve into sites of menace. Within these sites, disparate groups of characters encounter threats and often their own prejudices, as horror frequently performs social commentary and critique. The aforementioned examples engage with issues of race, religion, class and gender, sometimes highlighting social discourse and performing outright satire. And then there is the actual horror, from jump scares where something bursts out, as well as inventive and gruesome deaths, such as “The Omen” and “Final Destination” franchises.

The Hunt features all of these tropes to differing effects. Two disparate groups make up the principal characters. The members of the first group are introduced in a text message group chat — fairly mundane. The second is decidedly unusual: Various characters wake up in a forest clearing with bits padlocked around their heads. They quickly find a crate filled with weapons, making the scenario even more unusual, before the shooting starts. The archetypes are familiar: Pretty young woman, handsome young man, older man with “Airborne Squadron” cap, yuppie type, cranky older woman, loner who displays survival skills. There are some minor surprises amongst this group, but for the most part they are little more than the descriptions above. When the members of the group chat actually come on screen, The Hunt quickly establishes that they are ostensibly liberal but ultimately arrogant and self-righteous, which leads to the film’s attempted satire.

Broadly speaking, the two groups in the film are the 1% and the rest, capitalizing on the current debates about the wealth gap in American society. The familiarity of the debate is enhanced by the environment: Woods and roads, plus a gas station, all suggest a location that is at least linked to the familiar, only for it to turn out not to be. Thus the familiar trope of the uncanny, the familiar and unfamiliar together, takes shape. The 1% group are distant from anything outside their rarefied milieu of private jets, caviar and champagne. The “rest of us” group includes stereotypical “rednecks” with strong southern US accents, and some terribly attractive middle-class types. While this set-up does offer opportunities for insightful satire, there is little exploration of the class divide. The various archetypes are dumped on screen much as the victims are dumped in the forest. Some of them are swiftly dispatched (the viewer may struggle to remember how many we begin with and therefore how many are left), and the principal characters emerge from their respective groups with little fanfare or suspense. Thus character, location and social reflection are all used functionally, but with little imagination or impact.

This leaves the matter of the various deaths. Of the film’s elements, the deaths are the most effective, because the film has fun with its kills. Bullets punch through heads unexpectedly, a pit provides a repeated gag, landmines and grenades add to the carnage, arrows prompt one of the funnier lines (“What is this ‘Avatar’ shit?”), and shotguns deliver close range gore. The initial bout of blood outs recalls the Cornucopia sequence in “ The Hunger Games ,” which is interesting because although gorier The Hunt lacks the disturbing context and impact of that series. This is largely a matter of tone, as director Craig Zobel seems intent on giving the audience a fun time. A later set piece at the aforementioned gas station exchanges the exposed forest clearing for a confined space of blood spatter and some crunchy interactions, although by this point the film is losing steam. A set piece in a bunker is another matter of gunshots interspersed with unarmed combat, and despite some wince-inducing moments there is little inventiveness here.

Overall, the kills are enjoyable and some are laugh out loud funny, but at no point does The Hunt feel actually scary or even suspenseful. The best scene of the film is the first massacre, because this section is genuinely creative and committed to its gore. After that, Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof’s script feels increasingly clumsy as social commentary spills from the mouths of the characters IN CASE THE AUDIENCE WERE NOT GETTING THE SATIRE. References to refugees, climate change, social media, politically correct terminology and “Animal Farm” feel forced, making the satire blunt. The climactic confrontation combines elements of Final Figure and Boss Fight, and while the choreography and stunt work is impressive, there’s nothing the film, and indeed the genre, hasn’t shown us before and better. After such incisive pieces of socially critical horror films as “ Get Out ,” “ Halloween ,” and “ The Purge ,” The Hunt feels like a step back and a misfire for Blumhouse. Not to worry though, plenty more scares where that came from.

Tagged: forest , game , hunting , murder , survival , wealth

Dr. Vincent M. Gaine is a film and television researcher. His first book, Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2011. His work on film and media has been published in Cinema Journal and The Journal of Technology , Theology and Religion , as well as edited collections including The 21st Century Superhero and The Directory of World Cinema .

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The Hunt review – gory Trump-baiting satire is more hype than horror

The delayed liberal elites vs rural ‘deplorables’ thriller isn’t quite the political hot potato it’s being sold as, offering boilerplate B-movie schlock instead

H ow do you solve a problem like reviewing The Hunt? The schlocky horror film would ordinarily garner little attention beyond genre fans and a handful of critics. But after months of buildup touting it as a satire about liberal elites hunting rural Trump voters, the film now comes with some baggage.

The Hunt, directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof, appears at first glance to purposely provoke – one character references “the rat-fucker-in-chief”, another talks of “slaughtering a dozen deplorables” (a reference to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark ). The context of this line becaomes clear when the plot gets going: 12 people wake up, gagged and confused, in the woods while a mysterious box sits nearby, filled with weapons. (The script is loosely inspired by Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, about a rich man who hunts other humans for sport.) It doesn’t take long for every variety of death – shooting, exploding, stabbing – to descend from a hidden and prepared upper class.

The violence is gratuitous if cartoonish – one woman is shot at, impaled and then blown in half. But The Hunt does play with who to root for and who, if anyone, you can trust. Deaths are often swift and occasionally surprising; the characters are one-line stereotypes – rural woman from Wyoming, white wannabe rapper from Florida, Staten Islander who loves guns (Ike Barinholtz), Ivanka fan in leggings (Emma Roberts) – and are picked off one by one. The only “deplorable” with a clue how to fight back is Crystal (Betty Gilpin), a mysterious woman with an even more mysterious knowledge of martial arts.

The Hunt’s release in the middle of coronavirus fears in the US is another unlucky development in the film’s rollout. It was originally slated for release last September, but mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, prompted a postponement. Soon after, details about the film emerged and rightwing anger followed, even from Trump himself.

In February, it returned with an updated marketing strategy riffing on the controversy. A more spoiler-heavy trailer meant to frame the concept as a joke featured the tagline: “The most talked about movie of the year is one that no one’s actually seen.” The film-makers have claimed they didn’t anticipate any controversy from a film pitting “liberal elites” against “deplorables” in a violent human hunt, which seems like lobbing a mock grenade into a minefield and getting upset when people scatter.

Nevertheless, they have something of a point: if you can set aside the noise, you’re left with a boilerplate B-movie that doesn’t say nearly as much as it thinks it does. The jokes are the words of stereotypes spoken with a straight face, an opportunity to have a character say “climate change is real” , poke fun at white liberal NPR listeners who debate using “black” v “African-American” (“White people – we’re the worst,” says one elite in reference to everything except his killing), and imbue “did you read that article?” with more menace.

Which isn’t to say it completely lacks redeeming qualities, namely Gilpin. It’s good fun to watch her slink into a bunker and spit, “Bye, bitch,” or drawl through a rendition of The Tortoise and the Hare that ends in more violence. She bounces back from various injury in a matter of seconds and has a genuinely entertaining one-on-one fight with Hilary Swank , as chief elite villain.

The rest of the satire, however, struggles to translate. In creating characters that embody the worst stereotypes of America’s political poles, and making America’s divide as literal and violent as possible, The Hunt feigns a viewpoint rather than actually putting one forward. It takes aim at everyone, redeeming no one. Which feels circular, and queasy, and takes us right back where we started: some empty talk about a divided nation, and a film not worthy of this much conversation.

The Hunt is in UK cinemas on 11 March, US cinemas on 13 March and Australian cinemas on 23 March.

• Horror films
• Comedy films
• Hilary Swank

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The Hunt Reviews

No All Critics reviews for The Hunt.

‘Hunted’ has the rush of a thriller without the unnecessary violence

Abir Mukherjee’s new book is an action-packed story that also dives deeply into the stories of the families affected by a crime.

The setup may sound familiar, but “ Hunted ,” the new thriller from Abir Mukherjee, offers a welcome alternative to the typical cops-and-robbers tale.

Days after a terrorist organization kills dozens of people in a Los Angeles shopping mall, law enforcement officials arrest Sajid Khan at his place of employment in London and ruthlessly interrogate and beat him, seeking information about his 18-year-old daughter. This is how Sajid discovers that his beloved daughter, Aliyah, is a key figure in a dangerous terrorist network. When, a few days later, an American woman named Carrie Flynn finds Sajid and explains that her son has a connection to Aliyah and may also be involved with the terrorists, Sajid and Carrie embark on a perilous journey to America to save their children.

This plotline — a terrorist attack on the United States sets off a hunt-and-chase that affects the lives of ordinary people and reveals cracks in the political and social structure of the country — has been written and rewritten endlessly by writers like Vince Flynn, Lee Child and Brad Thor. Mukherjee keeps readers in that well-worn (and beloved) territory while elevating his tale beyond expectations. He dives deeply into the stories of the assailants’ families — the anguish and anxiety experienced by their horrified parents, and the rash decisions they are compelled to make. And he does this without abandoning the rush of a thriller or the complexities of law enforcement, particularly through the character of Shreya Mistry, an FBI agent who consistently defies her superiors as she hopes to stop the next attack on American soil. Mukherjee offers some keen observations, and his everyday heroes are a nice reprieve from the hypermasculine killing machines we typically come across in such books.

In his efforts to describe the uneasy political climate in contemporary America, Mukherjee does not shy away from the chaos of real-life politics or pertinent social issues. References are made to the 2016 election and the heartbreak brought on by the 2017 Muslim travel ban. More than simply observing these events, Mukherjee’s characters are particularly well-suited to offer commentary and insight into them, especially Sajid, a Muslim refugee of political violence in Bangladesh and the most clear-eyed and compassionate of the protagonists. Upon learning about the attack in Los Angeles, Sajid notes with concern, “It was taken as fact that the attackers would be Islamists, and suddenly a few hundred extremists with a death wish were taken as proxy for a billion people.”

America, in fact, is observed in almost Tocquevillian fashion as the protagonists race through the country. When passing poverty-struck towns in the Midwest, Sajid wonders: “There had been prosperity here … and yet it had gone. What did that do to people? To be masters of the world and then reduced to poverty? Would it engender anger? Fear?” When he later observes an American political rally, Sajid compares the event to its British counterpart and notes, “While there was certainly something to be said for the enthusiasm and engagement of the American model, without trust or an informed electorate, did it not lead to tribalism?”

These observations, along with forays into familial and romantic drama, never slow the book’s pace. Mukherjee has a knack for ending chapters on earned cliffhangers. Plot twists are largely presented without the strain of incredulity, the suspense is always weighted with emotion, surprising revelations are carefully constructed — and the ending is unexpected, daring and truly beautiful.

“Hunted” marks Mukherjee’s first stand-alone novel after the popular and critically acclaimed Wyndham & Banerjee Mysteries, and fans of those historical mysteries probably won’t be disappointed by the author’s turn to contemporary thrillers. Even if the book treads on familiar territory, Mukherjee proves he has more than enough talent, compassion and insight to tell a compelling, unique story.

E.A. Aymar is the author of the thrillers “They’re Gone,” “No Home for Killers” and “When She Left.”

By Abir Mukherjee

Mulholland. 400 pp. $30.

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