Movies to Avoid: My Take on Universal Picture's Upcoming Horror Film 'The Hunt'

What is your opinion about Universal Studios' decision to release a movie in 2019 about "killing deplorables" in which liberal elites hunt and kill conservatives for sport?

I think Universal Pictures (a Comcast company) is doing what every entertainment-based business does: it’s trying to make a lot of money by exploiting the current cultural zeitgeist.

In the case of this particular film, The Hunt, producer Jason Blum (the guy behind the Paranormal Activity and The Purge franchises) is taking conservative paranoia and dislike for liberals and distilling it into a revenge fantasy film in which a right-wing would-be victim (played by GLOW’s Betty Gilpin) turns the tables on the liberal elites that are kidnapping and hunting (for sport) innocent men and women who are self-described “deplorables.”

I strongly suspect that writer-producer Damon Lindelof and director Craig Zobel probably intend to make The Hunt as a horror movie that also comments on the wide and often vitriolic divide between liberals and conservatives. I’m also certain that since it’s billed as a horror film, it’s supposed to have a tongue-in-cheek vibe. In other words, it’s probably meant to be both a scary film and a dark satire about Trump-era American society.

Like most businesses in existence, Universal’s main motive is to make money. “Making art” is not the movie industry’s primary concern; that is the content creators’ stated purpose, though as a screenwriter in my own right, I’m also going to admit that most of us who write or direct films also would like to get paid for our efforts. (In short, that’s why filmmaking is considered to be part of show business.)

One surefire way to make a shitload of money in show business is to generate buzz about your TV show, song/album, book, chapbook, or movie.

What is buzz, you ask?

According to the Urban Dictionary, buzz can be defined thusly:

buzz

1. Anything that creates excitement or stimulus.
2. The feeling experienced by someone in a stimulated state.
3. Gossip.

1. "Shooting people is my latest buzz."
2. "That's nothing compared to the buzz I get from speed."
3. So what's the buzz about Michael Jackson's new baby?

So if you want people to go see The Hunt (which is yet another retread of the old story “The Most Dangerous Game) in September instead of Warner Bros. It: Chapter Two, how do you go about creating buzz?

You get its target audience agitated.

And who is the most likely person to watch a revenge film pitting an attractive, gutsy, and resourceful white woman getting even with a bunch of snooty, wealthy, and evil liberals who literally hunt other people for sport?

That’s right: White guys.

More specifically, angry white guys who want to see their worst assumptions about evil liberal elites on screen.

And if the hero is a sexy blonde with grit and a killing instinct to match, so much the better.

As a writer, I can’t say that Universal Pictures, or Blum, or Lindelof, or Zobel are necessarily in the wrong by making The Hunt. From all accounts, it’s a dark satire told in a horror movie format that seems to be saying, “This is the ridiculous extreme of how conservatives view liberals and vice versa.”

And, of course, when a studio greenlights a project - even one as questionable as The Hunt - with a predetermined release date (the Halloween horror movie season), executives have no way of foretelling when a tragedy like the El Paso Walmart shooting or the one that followed 13 hours later in Dayton, Ohio, will occur.

That being said, I seriously doubt that 2019 is the right time to release The Hunt. I think the concept is in poor taste, for one thing. I’m a liberal (centrist for the most part), and I do not like the film’s concept that shows liberal elites as ruthless murderers. (I also don’t like the cliche of wealthy conservatives as villains, either, if you must know.)

I will avoid The Hunt like the plague.