Movie Review: The Hunt (2020)

After a seemingly never ending reason of real-world issues pushing back its release, The Hunt was finally available for viewing in 2020, and is directed by Craig Zobel (Z for Zachariah). Crystal (Betty Gilpin) awakens after being drugged and gagged, along with several other victims, including Yoga Pants (Emma Roberts), Gary (Ethan Suplee) Shane (Justin Hartley) and Moses (Ike Barinholtz), and the group soon find themselves hunted by an unseen enemy: a group of the far-left elite as part of a urban legend conspiracy called ‘Manorgate’.

+ there are a few shocks, as there are bound to be in these ‘ensemble cast get hunted’ type move (see: Belko Experiment and Predators to name but two, each from different genres). Whether these will be enough to recommend the film is a bit hard to say, but they at least get that initial reaction
+ Usman Ally (the Hook Handed Man in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) has a minor-ish role, and for one reason or another he was the only actor that stood out

Crystal (Betty Gilpin)

Yoga Pants (Emma Roberts) unlocks the gag on Shane (Justin Hartley)

– I have seen Betty Gilpin in a lot of things (GLOW, most prominently), and I just don’t know what to think about her. In this, she was so stilted and off-putting that my viewing partner and I assumed there must be a twist where she was in fact a robot. Alas, she’s just weird
– none of the action was particularly intense or enjoyable. You could partition the action in this movie into a certain number of scenes, and there is almost no action outside of that. The ultimate showdown, so to speak, is also just not very good
– the plot, outside of ‘people get hunted’ is very thin, with two of the more would-be twists falling very flat. The finale in particular comes across as ambiguous, but not in a good way: it feels as if the script was poor rather than an intentionally unsaid line, for example

Should you see this film: This movie was not what I thought it was going to be, and in the end I can’t say that I really cared for it. Both because it was a different, and because what it did offer was not to my liking, I can’t recommend this.