“Depends on whether they’re smart pretending to be idiots or idiots pretending to be smart…”
There are some truly great films about humans hunting other humans. Battle Royale. The Hunger Games. Hard Target… OK, maybe not Hard Target but you get the picture. The Hunt shamelessly rips those films off and justifies doing so by also throwing in some half-assed and misguided social commentary. This is a personal preference thing but I don’t want a political message rammed down my throat when watching a film. I especially don’t want it if the message is badly thought out and unclear. In its best moments, The Hunt is a gleefully violent thrill ride but the constant ham-fisted references to the liberal elite undermine all the good stuff.
Twelve strangers are kidnapped, drugged and then hunted for sport by a shady group of rich, liberal elites (sigh). Crystal (Betty Gilpin) attempts to fight back.
My criticism in the opening paragraph of this review comes mostly from a place of frustration. Because when The Hunt is good, it’s very good. The delivery of gore is giddy and hilarious, the twists and turns are unpredictable and Betty Gilpin shines in a role that is unrecognisable from her day job on GLOW. Director Craig Zobel adds a hint of originality and twisted effervescence to his dark fable but there are also far too many eye-rolling inducing sermons that left me cold.
The supporting cast are a mixed bag with Hilary Swank woefully miscast and Glenn Howerton basically playing a less forgivable version of Dennis from It’s Always Sunny. Gilpin holds it all together, but even her all action performance can’t save The Hunt from being nothing more than a slightly above average horror movie. The bottom line is that this concept has been done to death and done better. Indeed, 2019’s Ready or Not had a similar conceit but delivered so much more and presumably with less of a budget – certainly with a less stellar cast.
Ten years ago, The Hunt would have been a perfectly serviceable horror flick. In 2020 however, that simply isn’t enough. Horror has moved on to darkly exciting places, let’s explore those instead and leave forgettable also rans like The Hunt in the past where they belong.