All Hunts Matter

Like many a genre film fan, I love nothing more than a good hunting humans flick. Battle Royale, The Human Race, The Belko Experiment, Surviving the Game, The Hunger Games for the kiddos. No year passes by without me watching The Running Man, only to immediately search for any new genre films like it that I might have missed.

No one would miss The Hunt this year. In any other time, this dark comedy would probably have fought to make back its budget in theaters, maybe garnering a loyal fandom once it hit streaming sites. Instead, the Blumhouse original infamously became another chip in political debates and later, the first major American release to be directly affected by COVID-19.

It's a weird journey for a genre film. 

Quick Plot: A fancy private jet filled with wealthy snobs gets a shake when a man who was clearly supposed to be in a deep sleep awakens in terror. One of the passengers kills him, much to the annoyance of his fellow passengers.

We shift to an open field and a crate full of some confused and gagged deplorables. Before we even learn their names, most of them are gunned down or, preferably, blown up.

Maybe I'm just a simple, simple woman, but I have a very hard time not finding self explosions very, very funny.

Very quickly, our batch of unsuspecting prey gets whittled down to a small handful. They seek shelter in a roadside convenience store only to finally learn the game they're playing: it's a hunt, set somewhere in eastern Europe, and the rules are...well, the rules are simply that there are some angry, wealthy Americans trying to kill you.

The sharpest of the scant batch of survivors is Snowball, or at least, that's the name bestowed up on her by the team of wealthy liberals hunting her. Snowball (the perfection that is fellow Fordham University alumni Betty Gilpin) is a tough talking southerner with skills that would make the most experienced marine envious.

By now, you probably know quite a bit about The Hunt, or at least, have heard the title thrown around in a whole lot of news stories over the past year. Written by Damon Lindelof and his Lost co-writer Carlon Cuse's son Nick Cuse and directed by Compliance's Craig Zobel, The Hunt's initial theatrical release was famously delayed because its marketing campaign and subject matter seemed in poor taste following a pair of mass shootings. It went on to open just as the rest of the country was closing, making it instead of the first big screen releases to have a VOD showing while it was in theaters.

There's something very interesting about how The Hunt became such a hot potato of American cultural debate, particularly because as a film, it's aggressively committed to being so politically apolical. Using the South Park school of making anyone with extreme views look like a buffoon, it's almost as if the writers kept a scoreboard to make sure that liberal and conservatives were being equally skewered at all times.

I was hesitant to watch The Hunt not because of its politics (or lack thereof) but because I couldn't imagine not being distracted by the pile of baggage that came with the film. I rather liked Zobel's Compliance, but some of megaproducer Jason Blum's comments during the frenzied press calls came off as smug in a way that I assumed would be fitting to the film.

Thankfully, The Hunt is - and I realize this is an odd thing to say about a movie with this history - a really good time. Yes, some of the attempts at coating its red vs. blue characters in silly hypocrisy comes across as forced, but the action moves so swiftly that you barely have time to roll your eyes before someone's head is being blown off.

Most importantly, it cannot be overstated how much Betty Gilpin brings to this movie. There's something to be said when you watch a performance and realize no other actor would have played it the same way. Whether she's telling her favorite childhood fable or being unimpressed with Hilary Swank's culinary advice, she just brings such a fresh energy that elevates the entire film.

High Points
Give. Betty. Gilpin. An. Action. Franchise. Now.

Low Points
Much like South Park, there's something a bit exhausting and unsatisfying in the nature of a film being so committed to not committing to anything. It's important for The Hunt, and truthfully, I'd probably be even harder on it had it swung any further right OR left, but there's still something a bit hard to swallow with that school of attitude

Lessons Learned
If you know you're crazy, you're just really mad

The only way to properly slice tomatoes is with a bread knife

Always ask before eating the cookies

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you can unhear all the arguments that erupted during The Hunt's heavy press days, head to Hulu and have a watch. This is a fun movie made with some wildly goofy energy, and while its broad characterizations can be a little much at times, its humor overcomes most of the flaws. It's a good, weird time. 

You Can't Have Prom Without the Prom Ride

I recently listened to an interview with horror producer extraordinaire Jason Blum, he behind what virtually amounts to every studio horror hit of the last ten years (among them the Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious, The Purge world, and Get Out, to name a few). I bring this up because one of the questions he was asked speaks heartily to today's film: is there still room for found footage in the horror genre?

Blum's immediate answer was a hearty no, followed by a little more explanation. In summary, he said (and I agree) that the only time to employ the dreaded double F style is if the movie absolutely requires it to the extent that it only makes sense AS a movie if it's done that way. 

Prom Ride, a very low budget but not terrible little horror film, does not understand this in the least.

Quick Plot: In the weeks leading up to prom, a bunch of attractive young people buy their dresses, play fart pranks on each other, and stage elaborately choreographed dance invitations, just as kids today apparently do. When the big night finally comes, Alejandra's parents treat their daughter and her seven pals to a souped up hummer limo. 

Before you can say Hello Mary Lou, the vehicle gets run off the road as their pleasant chauffeur (thus far the only tolerable character in the film) is murdered just outside the car windows. Cue a LOT of screaming, followed by an almost Jigsaw-esque game of torture with the teens as participants. 

It is as positively delightful as it sounds.

Written and directed by newbie Kazeem Molake, Prom Ride is clearly a beginner's movie. On one hand, it has some ideas and shows potential skill; on the other, it's pretty impossible to fathom how any viewer could possibly enjoy what happens onscreen. 

Look, I'm the token oddball who was charmed by the VERY elaborate dance number and way the filmmaker decided to superimpose handmade graphics over the screen to simulate video camera footage. I'm the same token oddball who can make a case for the young actors not being terrible, but just being forced to say terrible lines. And hey, the prom dresses were kind of cute.

So in summary, if you have a choice of watching Prom Ride or staring at your shoes, I'd say go for the movie. If your choices broaden to include youtube tutorials on how to do prom hair, reconsider.

High Points

As someone terrified of all things high heeled, I can appreciate a good gouging via stiletto

Low Points

Guys, it's 2017, and we've now had a full decade of found footage as the de facto style in low budget horror (remember the innocent aughts when it was all Saw ripoffs about imperfect strangers waking up in torture rooms? Sigh). Sometimes, it's a gimmick that makes sense to the action or can be justified for the film's overall tone. In the case of Prom Ride, a film that never claims to be composed of found footage, why, good god WHY, would Molake randomly stage shots as if they were recorded via phone or security camera? It does absolutely nothing for the action but makes it incomprehensible

Lessons Learned

Don't be fooled: it is indeed possible to do a sit-up with your eyes closed

A proper prom proposal should require at least four weeks of intense dance practice and intermediate choreography

When half your teenage friends order virgin cocktails, you shouldn't be surprised when the waiter asks for your ID upon ordering an alcoholic beverage

The (Losing) Line

Character 1: That would suck balls.

Character 2: That's what she said!

All Characters: (uproarious laughter)

Me: 

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't think anyone not related to the cast or crew will actually enjoy the experience of watching Prom Ride, but as I so often say in these corners, it's far from the worst thing you'll find streaming on Amazon Prime.