3/15/20 - The Hunt (2020) - 4-/10

Societal exploitation, with triggers and triggers. It wants to push buttons; ones that play with insecurities and ones that blow people up. They do try and lean hard on both sides of the outrage aisle, but that doesn’t make it any less cringe or any more enjoyable. The Hunt is shooting for shocks but gets mostly shrugs.

This movie has no problem leaning into the Blumhouse style, relying on over-the-top deaths, some gore, and lack of all subtly. It wants to a blood-splattered laugh in the face as it gut-shots you. For me though, it couldn’t cram in the true social commentary of a Purge or the drama of a Hush. This was very similar to a Belko Experiment; banal over indulgence, forced humor, and uninteresting ramped up twist on a tired formula from a sometimes expert writer/producer (James Gunn in Belko, Lindeloff in the Hunt).

I did like the performance of Gilpin, which was idiosyncratic and inferred. I appreciated the minimal backstory with her and with most of the characters, despite their caricature nature. We are dropped in media res, and despite the minimalism, they don’t try and force more into it. Granted, this is an extremely basic story and the cliched “you f***ed with the wrong lady”, but it worked in that sense. I can’t give them too much credit for, despite its surface level everything, it wasn’t as lively or likable as it could have been.

Really, that is all I wanted. The jokes needed to hit, the social jabs needed to land, and the action needed to feel more vital. Instead, it all felt a bit week and eye-rolley. It was too much with the extremes and too little in what might have been alluring to me. The promise of it was blunted by the actuality of it.