[REVIEW] 'HUNTER HUNTER' GOES AFTER THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

 Starring: Camille Sullivan, Summer H. Howell, Devon Sawa, Nick Stahl
Director: Shawn Linden
Writer: Shawn Linden

“We bring our problems to them, they bring their problems to us.” - Joseph

---

THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION

Shawn Linden's (The Good Lie) third film, Hunter Hunter (2020) presents the viewer with a complex roadmap to navigate towards a shocking conclusion which firmly places it in the subgenre of Canuxploitation.  Linden takes his time to flense the skin and fat from his story to expose the bones and sinew before laying out the beating heart of  his thriller. The main characters, the Mersault family,  journey through many types of conflicts which drive the rising action and leads to a shocking climax and bloody resolution.

 

The Mersault family struggles with many different types of conflict as they live in their chosen setting, a cabin deep in the woods with minimal human contact. Joseph (Devon Sawa, Final Destination, Idle Hands), Anne (Camille Sullivan, A Dog's Way Home), and their tweener daughter, Renee (Summer H. Howell, Cult of Chucky), live off the grid. They make a simple, bare bones life as hunters and trappers. Their primitive existence is initially upset the return of a wolf that eats their traps the discovery that there is not enough money to buy supplies for the coming winter.

 

Revisiting The Dunwich Horror

Child of Dunwich rise
You have your fathers’ eyes
Child of Dunwich rise
End the world that you despise
     -Electric Wizard, “Dunwich,” Witchcult Today

Return to Dunwich

One of the most looked-forward-to horror movies of 2020 was Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space. It was Stanley’s return to directing after 1992’s Dust Devil. There was much excitement about what the talented filmmaker would do with a work based on one of horror’s most beloved, and problematic authors–Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Upon release, the movie quickly was lauded as one of the year’s best movies. The reasons for its success are many, but Stanley’s unique envisioning of the story and his reverence for the source material were among the largest. Not surprisingly, the moviegoing public is anxiously expecting what he will do next.

Early in 2020, Stanley announced plans to make a Lovecraft trilogy. He had begun writing a script for The Dunwich Horror, based on Lovecraft’s story, first published in Weird Tales magazine in April 1929. This was exciting news for me because watching Daniel Haller’s The Dunwich Horror (1970) on late night television was my introduction to Lovecraft’s eldritch New England with its caches of forbidden knowledge, occult practitioners, and transdimensional monsters. I had been thinking about watching it again and now had a reason. With a new version coming soon, it was time to revisit spooky, aged Dunwich, Massachusetts to refresh myself on what devilry the Whateley clan did to earn their place in the hallowed halls of horror.

2020 YEAR END REVIEW

La Llorona

Holy shitballs has 2020 been a wild ride! But I believe we all learned a lot this year. Sadly, most of that probably falls under the “Good to Know” category rather than the “Good News” category. Who knew we would all end the year with Christmas lists that include day pajamas? Or be faced with the unsettling discovery that behind the burled, polished hardwood exterior of our system of checks and balances is the maggot laden, decomposing, hungry-for-your-brain zombie of despotism? Or just how easily many of our nation’s most beloved ideals could be subverted and perverted, used to attack the very principles they were established to protect?
But lets talk about the movies. Here is my first ever end of the year wrap up of favorite films from the last few years. I made an effort to concentrate on movies that I haven’t written about previously because everyone already knows that Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is my favorite film. No, I mean Mandy, or was that Midsommer? Or…

I have been using the tools at Trakt to record what I watch and rate. My profile (please feel free to follow me!) is here: https://trakt.tv/users/mcubed1220

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020 SIXTH AND FINAL EDITION

 

David Kajganich, screenwriter of Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria spoke on The Gaylords of Darkness Podcast about there being two kinds of horror: Rigorous and less rigorous horror. To me, that defines the movies I watch once or twice and forget about and the ones that I rewatch many times because they offer plenty to ponder. For this edition, I mixed in some less rigorous films and reveled in their easy-going charms!

[LISTS] SHOCKTOBERFEST 2020 FIFTH EDITION

Dear Past-Mike,

So much has happened in the world since you wrote to me in mid-September! Suffice it to say that life is still overwhelming, and our limbic systems are overburdened. The effects of long-term exposure to stress can lead to real changes in brain functionality and behavior. People can exhibit bizarre behavior and may become more susceptible to addiction and depression. Lucky for us, we have been dealing with those issues successfully for quite a while!