The Hunt Dvd

The Hunt is a 2020 American horror thriller film[a] directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof. The film stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Madigan, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee, and Hilary Swank. Jason Blum served as a producer under his Blumhouse Productions banner, along with Lindelof. Both Zobel and Lindelof have said that the film is intended as a satire on the profound political divide between the American left and right.

The film was first announced in March 2018, and the cast signed on a year later. Filming took place in New Orleans. The film was originally scheduled for release on September 27, 2019. However, following the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings in early August 2019, Universal Pictures decided to delay it. The film had also drawn criticism from pundits on both sides of the political aisle, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump, for its perceived targeting of red-state voters and depiction of “liberal elites.”

The Hunt was theatrically released in the United States on March 13, 2020, and received mixed reviews from critics, grossing $11 million. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the closure of most theatres within a week of the film’s release, to which the film’s financial shortcomings have largely been attributed. Universal made The Hunt available digitally on March 20.

Plot

In a group text, Athena Stone anticipates an upcoming hunt of “deplorables.” Later, on her private jet, she kills a man who staggers out from the cargo hold.

Eleven captives wake up gagged, in a forest, for the hunt. In a clearing, they find a cache of weapons and keys to their gags, but upon retrieving them, five are killed by an unseen enemy.

Three captives escape over a barbed-wire fence to a service station. The station’s owners, an elderly couple consisting of Miranda “Ma” and Julius “Pop”, identify their location as a point on Route 31 near Elaine, Arkansas. The three escapees, each kidnapped from a different part of the United States, realize their situation’s similarity to the conspiracy theory “Manorgate”. One of the three eats a poisoned donut and collapses, while Ma and Pop (who are amongst the captors’ ranks) kill the rest with poison gas. They then clean up the station for the next person to come in.

A fourth captive, Afghanistan War veteran Crystal Creasey, arrives. Asking for cigarettes and their location, she makes conversation with Ma and Pop, and the latter get nervous. Crystal then attacks and kills the couple with a sawed-off shotgun the couple had under the counter; she reveals that the cigarettes were too expensive for Arkansas.

Inspecting the pickup truck outside, she finds a Croatian licence plate underneath a fake Arkansas plate, and a booby-trap wired to the driver’s door. She later encounters another captive; a conspiracy theorist podcaster named Gary, and warns him from taking the truck. They board a train car full of refugees, whom Gary believes to be crisis actors; the train is then raided by Croatian soldiers. When Gary tries to convince the soldiers of Manorgate and the refugees’ perfidy, a refugee, “Crisis Mike” admits to Gary that he and only he is an actor, but says the raid was not planned for, and offers a head start for Gary’s cooperation. Gary uses a grenade the actor had hidden to kill him, and Crystal is taken to a refugee camp.

Crystal meets another escaped prisoner named Don at the camp, and Oliver, an envoy from the U.S. Embassy in Zagreb, arrives to take them to the embassy. On the drive there, Oliver probes into why they were selected for the hunt; suspicious, Crystal kicks Oliver out of the car and runs him over. She and Don find Gary’s body in the trunk with a box marked “bribe money” and a map. The faux envoy was one of the hunters.

Crystal tells Don the story of “the Jackrabbit and the Box Turtle,” a version of The Tortoise and the Hare in which the Jackrabbit kills the Box Turtle after losing. At the envoy’s intended destination (which is shown to be close to where the captives originally found the weapons cache and were subsequently killed), Crystal kills the hunters she finds and wounds their tactical consultant Sgt. Dale. Athena calls out to Don via radio, asking if he killed Crystal. When Don refuses to disarm, Crystal kills him. Crystal tortures the wounded Sgt. Dale to get Athena’s location and after telling him that she fought in Afghanistan, kills him.

A flashback reveals that Athena’s group text exchange was a joke. However, it was leaked on the internet, creating furor over “Manorgate”. Subsequently, the group text’s participants, whose careers were ruined, decide to make Manorgate come true. They abducted people who shared and produced internet materials relating to Manorgate. Athena is personally offended by a social media post Crystal had made about her, and insists on her inclusion, nicknaming her “Snowball”.

When Crystal confronts Athena, Athena mocks Crystal’s personal history. Crystal tells Athena that she’s confused her with another Crystal from her hometown, but her middle name is spelled May, rather than Mae. Crystal and Athena get into a drawn out fight, eventually impaling one another on the two blades of a food processor; Athena dies, but Crystal gets a second wind upon seeing a jackrabbit appear near Athena’s body. She cauterizes her wound, dresses in Athena’s clothes, takes Athena’s dog, and leaves on her jet.

Cast

Betty Gilpin as Crystal Creasey
Hilary Swank as Athena Stone
Ike Barinholtz as Staten Island (Moses)
Wayne Duvall as Don
Ethan Suplee as Gary
Emma Roberts as Yoga Pants
Chris Berry as Target (Boxer)
Sturgill Simpson as Vanilla Nice
Kate Nowlin as Big Red (Molly)
Amy Madigan as Ma
Reed Birney as Pop
Glenn Howerton as Richard
Justin Hartley as Trucker (Shane) (uncredited)
Sylvia Grace Crim as Dead Sexy
Walker Babington as Bandana Man
Jason Kirkpatrick as Randy
Teri Wyble as Liberty
Macon Blair as Fauxnvoy (Oliver)
Usman Ally as Crisis Mike
J. C. MacKenzie as Paul
Steve Coulter as The Doctor (Ted)
Dean West as Martin
Steve Mokate as Sgt. Dale
Hannah Aline as Kelly (Flight Attendant)
Tadasay Young as Nicole
Jim Klock as Cpt. O’Hara