‘The Hunt’ Makes Fun Of Deplorables And Libtards
By: John Devore
Tags: Politics, Horror, Masculinity, Movies, Satire

Photo: Universal Pictures

‘The Hunt’ Makes Fun Of Deplorables And Libtards

In this controversial horror movie, America is sick with a virus — partisan politics

The low-budget horror-satire The Hunt is another retelling of the classic public domain short story “The Most Dangerous Game” about bored humans hunting other humans, only with a very contemporary twist.

In The Hunt, the hunted are all called ‘deplorables’ which was the 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s controversial nickname for conservatives. The Hunt is a movie about snobs stalking slobs, woke elites killing politically incorrect working-class stiffs, left murdering right.

The Hunt is the perfect movie for the coronavirus pandemic because it’s a movie about anger and hatred, the two things that are getting in the way of the United States effectively managing this unprecedented public health crisis. Americans do not trust their president, or the media, or each other. In ‘The Hunt,’ America has a fever and the only cure is murder.

This movie is a nasty little poke in the national eye. It mocks insufferable NPR-listening liberal do-gooders and paranoid right-wing bigots. And it also slyly warns that the internet lies to us.

It’s too bad this warning didn’t come out last September when The Hunt was originally supposed to come out. That’s because Universal Pictures had to cancel their tongue-in-cheek libtards vs. rednecks movie due to backlash from conservative critics, including the President of the United States. They had not seen the movie, of course. If they had, they would have known The Hunt is mostly on the side of the prey. The hero of the movie, in fact, is a blue-collar woman from a red state who is handy with a gun, played with a mix of salt-of-the-earth stoicism and movie star vulnerability by Betty Gilpin, who you might recognize from Netflix’s endearing ’80s wrestling show Glow.

At the time, the country was still reeling from a pair of mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. The studio claimed to pull the movie was a matter of sensitivity but the political pressure was undeniable.

The conservatives who piled on The Hunt did so because they believed a convenient lie: that Hollywood liberals produced a serious movie about wealthy urban know-it-alls shooting their rural political opponents full of arrows. It was a story that was literally too good to be true. The irony, of course, is that the movie these conservatives — many of them free speech advocates — moved heaven-and-earth to pull from theaters never mentions political parties or even the current President’s name.

The producers of The Hunt thought there was no way history could turn against them a second time and secured a new release date of March 20th, 2020. I’m sure these producers were thinking, considering the sheer amount of negative news being produced every day, that most Americans would have forgotten what happened six months ago. They were right, I think.

And then the global coronavirus pandemic — -a highly infectious respiratory illness — closed movie theaters all across the country. I was able to watch The Hunt because it arrived on Amazon Prime months early, which is a growing trend as studios struggle to find new ways to distribute their movies. The price is steep compared to other options — about $20 — but not that much different from a night out.

I was happy to watch this movie in my living room but I still desperately love going to the movies.

The Hunt, directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Curse and TV golden boy Damon Lindelof, is not a great movie. At best, it’s a zippy, gory shock comedy with an attitude. But it’s lack of respect for those who occupy the two ends of the American political continuum is what makes it worth the price to stream. If you have ever flipped back and forth between CNN and FOX News and thought “fuck these people” then The Hunt may be for you?

I guess what I’m saying is I really liked The Hunt. That is not a political statement. I just found it cathartic. I don’t know about you but American politics feels like having to sit in the backseat of a car being driven by two maniacs fighting over the steering wheel. Where are we going? Should we slow down? Are we going to crash? No one knows!

The Hunt stars a deep-bench of B-movie stars who, I swear, are cast to throw viewers off on who is expendable and who isn’t. This is a movie where it’s wise not to get too attached to anyone. There is also a verifiable A-list movie star who shows up near the end to play the ultimate liberal villain.

Yes, the characters in the movie are mostly caricatures but we live in an era where people already willingly caricature themselves online. The modern internet is like the masked orgy scene from Stanley Kubrick’s last great movie Eyes Wide Shut — only the anonymous partygoers are insulting each other instead of having sex.

The violence is constant and the gore graphic. An eyeball is plucked off the end of a high-heel within the first ten minutes or so. If you’re sensitive to heads exploding, then The Hunt may be a tough watch. I confess that I am a fan of ridiculous blood spurts. In The Hunt, we are asked to pretend the culture war is a real war and not what it actually is: well-fed people bickering over how to decorate.

There are moments when The Hunt occasionally reminded me of the 1988 high school black comedy classic Heathers. For instance: both movies love hand grenade gags. Heathers and The Hunt are also savage critiques of society — they both wish all two-faces were dead. It’s a simple message but these are simple times.

‘The Hunt’ curses both Democrats and Republicans.

The Hunt mocks our collective anger because our collective anger is so trivial. What is it based on, really? Why do Americans hate each other so much? I, mean, there are people out there with thoughtful and passionate political positions but I’ll be fucked if cable news hosts or triple-digit Twitter personalities have one principled idea rattling around in their skulls.

The creators of The Hunt exist in a nebulous sort of political middle. I do not think movies, or art, have to offer up substantial or serious political policies. But I think they should reflect real human emotions and The Hunt does that successfully. The movie is pissed-off at the far-right and far-left and I wager so are plenty of Americans who are just trying to live the best lives they can. The Hunt curses both Democrats and Republicans.

The problem with “a pox on both your houses” is that the person who mutters it in Romeo & Juliet then dies. Mercutio is too late to curse the two warring families whose rivalry leads to his murder. The Capulets and Montagues will endure more tragedy at the end of Shakespeare’s play but it’s anyone’s guess if they learn anything. I also assumed they continued killing each other in Romeo & Juliet 2.

I don’t think a trashy movie like The Hunt can possibly change anything. This is just entertainment. A few hours of make-believe. The Hunt is a brief escape to a world where the fatcats and the fascists all get what they deserve.