Pretty much any monster movie (and I’ll include serial killer films in there because ultimately that’s what most of them are) leans into the idea that the monster is a predator and its victims are its prey. So, in other words, it’s just replicating relationships that exist in nature, but since we, as a species, are supposed to have transcended those base transactions, and so that’s where the horror comes in. That despite all of our evolution and technology, under the right circumstances, we can be reduced to a target, to food. That we aren’t so special after all.
Hunter Hunter, then, is an absolutely harrowing film about the relationship between predator and prey, and it goes some unexpected places.
Joseph and his family - his wife Anne, and daughter Renee - live off the land, in a remote parcel, far even beyond rural, out where tourists don’t usually go and even the seasonal crowd hasn’t built homes (though that’s certainly changing). Joseph and Renee are out setting trap lines, collecting pelts and meat. The pelts they can sell in town, the meat’s what they’ll eat to survive. This is how Joseph lives, how his father lived, how his father’s father lived, and so on and so on as long as this has been their land. He’s focused on the work and showing Renee what needs to be done when he notices one of his traps has had its catch gnawed away, all that’s left in the trap is a leg. It looks like the work of a wolf. This is going to have to be taken care of quickly - winter’s coming, and that’s when they move to their other cabin further south, and they’re going to need supplies to take with them. Pelts aren’t bringing in the money they used to, and food is starting to run low. The last thing they need is another predator taking the prey they need to survive..
Especially one that isn’t afraid to venture into another predator’s territory.
So Joseph resolves to set up traps and stake out the area, waiting for the wolf to reveal itself. He and his family represent a dying breed - they live off the grid, off the land, hunt and trap to keep themselves fed. He’s aware he’s part of a world that’s vanishing as modernity encroaches, and he’s very much the taciturn alpha male, with the protectiveness that comes along with it, that desire to stand between his loved ones and the dangers of the wild. He doesn’t want Anna and Renee to know how bad this situation is, how much danger they’re in, but Anna and Renee are no pushovers, they’re accustomed to this life as well, and capable of taking care of themselves. That said, you get the sense that there’s some restless, some dissatisfaction there. Anna wonders if Renee wouldn’t be better off going to school like any other kid her age, and it’s getting harder and harder to make a living off the land, and maybe a house in town wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Joseph doesn’t want to hear it. He’s got his pride, but that idea that the modern world is pushing in, imposing itself on nature, is an idea that runs throughout the film.
It’s a very tense film - it’s mostly about Joseph’s attempts to survey the forest, to try and find signs of the wolf, and Anne and Renee’s attempts to keep the household going while he’s away and radio silent. In either case, you’ve got people in a forest that is very still, very quiet, and where that quiet is likely hiding something that sees them as food. The slightest sound could portend disaster, so things (especially in the first half) operate on a constant low boil, the awful waiting before the even more awful action. The music is minimal, mostly ambient hums and understated strings (with one especially striking exception at the very end), and the cinematography alternates sprawling shots of the woods and ominous, cloudy skies with more claustrophobic moments, all in a mostly drab, desaturated palette. This isn’t the nature people go to on vacation, this is the nature people live and work in, unsentimental at best, cruel at worst.
At first it doesn’t seem like a horror film - some horror films announce themselves from the opening credits, others take varying amounts of time to reveal themselves, and this one takes its own sweet time to get there, but make no mistake, this is a monster movie, but you don’t really see the monster all that much, and that’s to the good - a lot of this film is in little things, in inference, things briefly glimpsed, so the few really graphic moments hit that much harder as a result. The characters are all believable as regular people - Joseph might be a little bit of a caricature, but not much, and there are a number of beats that underscore the fundamental humanity of the people on screen, for better or worse. There’s some denial here - Anna and Joseph want to protect Renee, and so maybe they aren’t as honest with her as they should be, but in the end it isn’t really their undoing. These are competent, capable people who think they understand the world they live in and the rules of that world.
When it turns out they don’t, it upends everything in a climax that I can only describe as shocking, as trite as that word is, for as sudden and intense as it is. The end is jarring, even, and probably really polarizing. I go back and forth on it - the majority of the film has been constant simmering tension, so when the turn comes, it’s startling without feeling totally inconsistent to the rest of the movie. I think it’s shocking, but also that it plays fair - and it sets off something that builds the film to a primal howl before ending on a smash to black and total silence, leaving me with an empty feeling in my stomach for what I just witnessed. Remember: It’s about predators, and prey, and whether or not that relationship can adapt to the modern world moving in around all of them.
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