Craig Zobel's sleek political satire wrapped in a guns-blazing horror movie, The Hunt, managed to stir up enough controversy to potentially scare away an audience who might believe it to be too real for 2020.
Any time the divisive ways of the Internet, social media, and how it's causing a wedge between previously reasonable people and making them enemies because common ground is increasingly hard to find.
The Hunt unfortunately suffered again during its second attempt at releasing theatrically in March 2020, and was flanked by reviews were surprisingly negative out of the gate, which prompts the thought that perhaps the disinterest and dislike of The Hunt could be because it's too close to real life.
Was The Hunt Just TOO Real For 2020?
The Hunt's source material, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, which was a short story first published in 1924, was also full of political and social commentary. The concept of the rich hunting the poor or one social group hunting another is nothing new - even in horror, which has arguably always been political. Movies like Jordan Peele's Get Out and Brian Yuzna's Society are some of the first that spring to mind when thinking of horror movies with these sorts of concepts behind them, pushing the horrors of social, race, and class divides on a high-octane, nail-biting stage. However, for some reason, Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof's story didn't stick the landing with its audience.
This has happened before, particularly with cut footage of a fictional mass shooting after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
While Cult is revisited now by fans of the series, and somewhat better liked after the age of time, The Hunt is very likely a film that will be panned and disliked in 2020 because its messaging isn't as clear in the present moment as it will be to audiences in the future. For that, and many other reasons, it will likely become a cult classic down the road, but for now, The Hunt paints a picture that is just too real for some audiences because it's, in many ways, ahead of its time.
