Why Not Kill Them All? A Review of The Hunt

“Those people suffered four hundred years of bondage at the hands of that uneducated piece of shit’s ancestors — four hundred years.” So says an enlightened liberal to his partner-in-arms when she expresses remorse about a deplorable the two of them just killed. The remorse soon passes when a white woman with a southern drawl comes their way.

After much controversy and a delayed release, The Hunt has now reached American theaters. It’s a remake of the classic short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, but with a modern culture-war twist: The hunter-villains are snotty Democrats, and their human prey is a group of conservatives they’ve kidnapped. Though certainly not high art, or even remotely subtle, it is a fun 90 minutes. After the first half hour I was convinced that the director played as much of the Unreal Tournament video game series as I did in the 2000s, and by the end I felt confident that Kill Bill must be one of his favorite movies. In other words: The Hunt is violent, gory, intense, and a blast. There is humor sprinkled throughout, with the liberals lecturing each other about “privilege” and correct language, while the conservatives bumble around trying to figure out what is going on, and how to save their skins.

I was impressed with the pacing and the death toll. This movie doesn’t dawdle with 30 minutes of cliché backstories and trite character “development” the way so many American thrillers do. More importantly, it avoids the greatest sin a movie of its kind can commit: making it obvious from the start who will survive and who will die. But cinematic virtue aside, the point of the movie is catharsis. “Woke” people are annoying, and the indignities they force on the rest of us are endlessly infuriating. Who hasn’t at some point thought to himself, “Can we stop shadowboxing via rival cable networks and just fight? Let’s get this over with.” The Hunt lets you play out that fantasy, and with enough blood and gore to satisfy Eli Roth. If you are squeamish, this is a warning, not a recommendation.

I do like an occasional violent romp, but what I liked most about The Hunt is that such a dissident movie was made at all — and by whom. It was released by Universal Pictures, and both its producers, Jason Blum and Damon Lindelof (Mr. Lindelof also co-wrote it) have long mainstream resumes. Plenty of the actors are known  as well, including Hillary Swank, certainly a surprise after she made a name for herself by starring as the trans protagonist in the liberal tearjerker Boys Don’t Cry.

This production means a lot of people are getting annoyed with elitist condescension, cancel culture, and all the rest. This is great news; I really don’t want anyone 20 years from now be able to say The Hunt was prescient.