Review: 'The Hunt' is worse than the worst movie you've ever seen

You’re familiar with the Russian bot farms, right? They’re those rooms full of servers where Vladimir Putin’s best trolls make up memes and spread myths about pedophile rings meeting in pizza parlors in order to further our political divide.

There’s a chance you’re vaguely familiar with this movie. The story revolves around a group of Red State MAGA types that are being hunted for sport by members of the liberal elite. About a year ago, the president tweeted that the script was racist. Now, clearly he hadn’t seen the script because this isn’t a movie that celebrates the deaths of conservatives. If anything the liberals are the ba -

You know what? Scratch that. There is absolutely no one to like in this movie. The whole movie should have been the opening credits then a bomb goes off and kills everyone and we get to go home.

Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, the team that created critically acclaimed series like Watchmen and The Leftovers are behind The Hunt, and that might be the most mind boggling thing about it. Now, Lindelof on his own is responsible for some real turds like Lost and Tomorrowland, but when he teams with Cuse, the result is rarely anything short of great. What the hell happened here?

The script is something you would expect from a TV movie starring Kirk Cameron. It takes the political divide in this country and turns it into slapstick. Imagine a Three Stooges short where Shemp takes an arrow through the eye and Moe responds to getting hit in the face with a pie by jamming his car keys into the side of Larry’s neck.

The Hunt’s cast is impressive, but they are all unnecessary. Emma Roberts, Hillary Swank, Glenn Howerton and Ike Barinholtz all show up in roles that put them on screen for less than 10 minutes. I assume the paychecks were huge and everyone had boats to pay for, because there is nothing about the story that would make someone say “I NEED TO BE IN THE HUNT!”.

Political satire and social commentary are good things. We need more of the kind of middle finger to authority those forms of art require. The Hunt is not that. The Hunt is a wink wink nudge nudge with a palm open and ready to accept your money.

Here’s just how directionless and gutless this movie is: it is allegedly about our political divide, phrases like “MAGA,” “deplorable,” and “snowflake” are thrown around, but you know what isn’t? The names Trump or Clinton or Obama never appear in the script. If you’re going to send up our political moment in 2020, have the stones to put some names on it. Corporate approved satire is very rarely worth your time and The Hunt is no exception.

Blumhouse, the studio that has totally revolutionized and revitalized horror on the big screen, is known for taking risks. Letting comedian Jordan Peele make movies like Us and Get Out isn’t something every studio would do. Taking a classic horror character like The Invisible Man and adding an element of the #MeToo movement to his story to create something more socially relevant isn’t something every studio will do. The Hunt is from the same studio and frankly, I am concerned that the smart executives that took chances on the aforementioned movies have been kidnaped and are being held hostage so that this live action Bugs Bunny cartoon could make it to the big screen.