There are two ways to come at The Hunt. If you paid attention to the hubbub around it when Universal abruptly postponed its release last September, you may go in expecting to see the latest politically charged horror-thriller, something similar to what Jordan Peele has been doing with Get Out and Us. I mean, why wouldn't you? This is the movie that angered the entire conservative talk-radio machine once word got out that it was a twist on "The Most Dangerous Game," only with liberal elitists hunting gun-loving red-staters for sport. And The Hunt is co-written and produced by noted big-thinking screenwriter Damon Lindelof, now back on everyone's good side thanks to HBO's Watchmen. So certainly he has some thoughts on the state of today's America. Surely there has to be more to this film than rampant bloodshed at the expense of Republican voters, right?
Well, there is. A little. But probably not enough to defuse that controversy. On the flip side, the film doesn't paint a rosy picture of overly woke free-thinkers either. Any liberal Twitter warriors coming into this movie hoping to see a bunch of NRA enthusiasts get what's coming to them are likely to leave insulted as well. If The Hunt has an overall point to make, it seems to be: "Rednecks are awful. Politically-correct snowflakes are even worse. Try not to get caught in the middle." Which, honestly, isn't a terribly deep or even interesting perspective for a movie to take.
Which is why the best way to come at The Hunt is from the second way: As a full-on exploitation picture that's only in it for the gore. And, in that regard, if you ignore the politics and revel in the genre … then, yeah, there's some fun to be had here. And that fun starts with Betty Gilpin, the statuesque blonde who is just the right shade of weird to anchor this baby. Gilpin has been doing great work on TV for years now, most notably as a 1980s wrestler trying to succeed in a man's business in Netflix's GLOW. She's awesome in that. So awesome that she was my pick to be cast as Captain Marvel. (Dear Marvel: She'd STILL make a great She-Hulk.) Off-screen, Gilpin is also a little out there — just watch or listen to her in nearly any recorded interview — and I think she's able to use a bit of her own personality to her advantage in a genre picture like this.
In The Hunt, Gilpin plays Crystal, a no-nonsense Southern gal who wakes up one day to find herself gagged and dropped in the woods with an assortment of likely Trump voters. (There's Second Amendment Guy, Florida Man, someone who may be a Kaitlin "Gun Girl" Bennett surrogate, etc.) They just as soon find a crate loaded with weapons with which to defend themselves before they start being picked off by the "hunters" — a group of smug, elite leftists who have indeed made a game out of murdering their political opposites. Most of the abductees are promptly eliminated within the first half hour. (Fangoria readers might say that they are SPECTACULARLY eliminated.) Crystal is smarter than everyone else though and survives the opening onslaught. Once she's properly introduced, which comes later in the film than you'd think, she quickly — and by design — becomes the only character worth rooting for. The film then turns into a survival thriller pitting Crystal against the bloodthirsty game-makers.
It's a heavy load to carry, but Gilpin makes do by going in some surprising directions. Crystal is not a typical "badass" horror protagonist, but rather a quiet-yet-competent survivor who at times seems nonplussed by the carnage going on around her. The movie hints that she has a military background, and I also don't think it's stretch to read Crystal as a character who might be a bit on the spectrum. It feels unique, and the movie doesn't need to work too hard to get the audience on Crystal's side. People are trying to kill her. She's going to try to kill them back. And that's really all there is to it.
Everyone else in the movie is a cut-out caricature destined to get what's coming to them. Or what the other side thinks is coming to them at any rate. Don't come to The Hunt expecting the film to argue that a person's political leanings are just one shade of their complex personality. This is the type of movie where a "red" character will immediately accuse a group of immigrants of being crisis actors and a "blue" character will just as quickly prove him right. There are two notable reveals in the film, and while they work to keep the plot moving forward, they don't really deepen the film's political subtext all that much. In fact, it's probably fair to say that less than half of the political jabs the film throws actually land.
So my advice is to just leave your politics at the door. I dropped mine pretty quickly and found myself cackling at some of the movie's better gore gags. And the cast is fun even outside of Gilpin. Amy Madigan, who I haven't seen on screen in forever, has a blast playing one-half of an old bickering married couple who are too woke for their own good. Every movie like this needs a final boss, and you certainly could do a lot worse than Hilary Swank's Athena, an immaculately dressed corporate bigwig who probably endorsed Warren on Twitter but secretly planned to vote for Bloomberg. There's an elaborate fight between her and Gilpin that no one is going to mistake for a John Wick sequence but still carries a good bit of oomph.
Maybe the smartest decision Lindelof, along with director Craig Zobel and co-writer Nick Cuse, made with The Hunt was keeping things lighter than you'd expect. I don't think this concept would work at all as a super-dark piece of torture porn. And god help anyone who attempts to take its politics seriously. But as a fun, 90-minute splatter flick where we're meant to celebrate the deaths of brusque, narrow-minded Republicans and insufferable, easily-offended Democrats alike, The Hunt is just entertaining enough to get by.
