Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hunter Hunter’ on Hulu, a Sparse, Riveting Horror Story About Lone Wolves and Men

Now on Hulu, Hunter Hunter is brought to us by IFC Midnight, the genre-flick division of indie-movie stalwart IFC, so be warned, one may be tempted to apply the phrase “arthouse horror” here. Of course, IFC Midnight’s first release was The Human Centipede, and other titles include The Babadook and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising, so I guess we can conclude that the distributor catalog has some serious RANGE. Anyway, Hunter Hunter: It’s the first major release from writer/director Shawn Linden, who shows some serious aptitude for generating suspense — and also showcasing gore.

HUNTER HUNTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Anne (Camille Sullivan) is weary of bickering with traders over the value of beaver and muskrat pelts. Weary of not quite having enough to eat. Weary of a lonely existence in the woods with her trapper-tracker-hunter husband Joe (Devon Sawa) and their 12-year-old daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell). It’s not the 1700s, nor is it the modern day; it’s more like the late ’80s or so, recent enough that this existence, in a remote cabin sans running water and electricity, is outdated by a century or two. But it’s what Joe knows, and chose, and the property dates back in his family for generations. Renee is so wholly isolated from the rest of society and indoctrinated into this, shall we say, rustic lifestyle, she can sniff a pile of feces and tell you whether it’s raccoon or beaver or wolf.

Right — wolf. That’s a problem for trappers, who tend to find only the gnawed-off legs of their game in the traps. “It’s back,” says Renee, and her dad, who isn’t of many words, nods. And it’s a lone wolf, which means it’s extra dangerous, so even a trip to the outhouse is sketchy. This is a good time for Anne to show Joe the brochure for a nice house in a town where Renee could go to school. But this is what you signed up for, is his reply, and she agrees, but asserts that Renee didn’t sign up for anything. Is there anyone else around? Yes, sort of. Local cop Barthes (Gabriel Daniels) scrapes roadkill off the road with a shovel, and bickers with fellow officer Lucy (Lauren Cochrane) about whose turn it is to rescue the obnoxious yuppies in their forest palace from the bear that’s marauding their garbage cans.

Anyway, Joe and Anne’s disagreement is tabled for the more immediate problem. Joe gears up to track and kill the wolf, and basically tells the family not to wait up for him. They could chat by walkie talkie, but the squawking would scare the animal off. He rubs his skin with an herb to mask his scent, eats a different leaf to mask his breath, howls into the sky until something howls back. He lines the beast up in his rifle sight. But what’s that in it’s mouth — a human hand? Yes. Does this raise the possibility that there’s something in these woods that’s worse than a hungry wolf? Probably. Is this a man vs. nature movie or a man vs. monster movie or a man vs. man movie? I ain’t sayin’.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hunter Hunter is reminiscent of living-off-the-land drama Leave No Trace and Liam-Neeson-fights-wolves-with-his-damn-bare-hands movie The Grey, with some of the gripping intensity of a Jeremy Saulnier film (think maybe Blue Ruin) and the unrepentant gore of a grisly zombie flick.

Performance Worth Watching: Without giving away too much, there’s one shot where Sullivan’s expression shifts from grief to rage, and the moment galvanizes her character’s viability, and maybe the movie itself.

Memorable Dialogue: “This is a hard life,” Anne says. (True.)

“Life is hard everywhere,” Joe retorts. (Fair.)

“This is harder,” Anne shoots back. (Game, set, match.)

Sex and Skin: It’s really not a spoiler to reveal that there are dead naked bodies in this film.

Our Take: Linden’s commitment to storytelling clarity is as principled as Joe’s way of life. It’s spare, simple, pared down to necessities. Such clarity allows narrative implications to seep through: Is the film an indictment of this lifestyle? I don’t think it passes judgment. As Joe says, life is hard no matter where you are; predators stalk urban spaces too, remember. In many ways, Hunter Hunter is an intimate portrayal of a principled, committed life. But on the other hand, maybe this terror is what you get when you’re not a good consumer in corporatized society. Maybe if you’re not making minimum wage and watching sitcoms, you’re just waiting to be victimized in a far less subtle manner. Have a nice day.

The film’s only real indulgence is a cornucopia of closeups on guts and slaughter, but I’ll play apologist and assert that such squidgy sights may feel unnecessary in the moment, but ultimately are necessary in the context of Joe, Anne and Renee’s lives, where butchery in a hunter-gatherer feed-the-family sense is a daily reality. The film’s unforgettable final sequence is gross and nasty and ruthless and a variety of other upsetting superlatives, and it’s of a markedly different tone than its opening scenes. Yet Linden makes the transition from taut indie thriller to outright horror subtly and effectively, and mostly within reasonable boundaries of realism — even when people do unreasonable things. Highly unreasonable things, done in the heat of emotional dysphoria.

The finale is also righteous as hell, and lands a heavy blow to the ol’ solar plexus. It renders Hunter Hunter a consistently suspenseful sphincter-clencher of a genre exercise, minus any backwoods cliches, executed by a filmmaker with a keen eye for detail and visionary sensibilities. It’s not just about death and desolation, either. There’s some, what’s the word I’m looking for here — art? Yes, art. There’s some art to it, without any overt artsiness. So I guess that means it’s arthouse horror. And that’s a good thing.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hunter Hunter is a hell of a movie. Weak stomachs need not apply.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch Hunter Hunter on Hulu