The Hunt (2020) (zero stars)

Directed by:  Craig Zobel

Starring:  Hilary Swank, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Ike Barinholtz, Ethan Suplee, Amy Madigan

Look at the talent I've listed in starring roles in the reprehensible, paralyzingly dull, gory mess that is The Hunt.   Hilary Swank is a two-time Oscar winner for Best Actress, and now she is starring in The Hunt?    She and the others will likely recover from this movie and move on to brighter things.   Once I'm finished with this review, I will also have forgotten this dreadful flick...I hope.

The Hunt was supposed to be released last September but was delayed because of its controversial plot, which is giving the film too much credit by suggesting it has one.    The "plot" is simply what differentiates it from a snuff film.   Within the first few minutes, a man is stabbed in the neck with a piece of glass.   Blood gushes upward from his wound like oil was struck.  Then a woman finishes him off by planting the heel of her pump into his eye socket and pulling out the eye and its parts which connect it to the skull.   Fun times.   With each killing, it seems the filmmakers are only trying to outdo themselves by seeing how much blood and gore we can stand until we cry uncle.   I cried uncle early and often to no avail.

What is the so-called controversial subject matter of The Hunt?   Liberal elites kidnap "deplorables" and then hunt them, like The Most Dangerous Game.    The liberals spew their rhetoric in one-liners while taking a break from killing their prey.   The "deplorables" occasionally spout off about "crisis actors" and the Second Amendment before being laid to waste.    That is the extent to which these characters are seen.    Usually, a movie contains a plot and characters, otherwise it would be The Hunt, which is labeled as satire, but to me may as well be Halloween: Deplorables.    Satire requires examination and a humorous point of view.    If The Hunt is playing all of this for laughs, then it is even more deplorable than its characters or its violence, which is saying something.

The Hunt gives us nothing to care about or anyone to root for.   We do not care which side wins or loses, just that it will soon mercifully end.    I rarely give a zero star review.    The last one I think was the 1980 film Caligula, which was surely longer than The Hunt, but was equally as repugnant.   I take little joy in writing this scathing review, and the fact that I give the film zero stars probably has something to do with that.   The film should've stayed yanked from release and kept on the shelf.  But alas, in this period of movie history in which most major blockbusters are delaying their releases due to the COVID-19, theaters probably feel they have to show something on their screens in order to stay in business.   Better to have a closed theater than subject its patrons to The Hunt.