To Hunt or not to Hunt?

[peter]

Let's talk about this.

Craig Zobel's Blumhouse Pictures produced The Hunt has been pulled from its scheduled release date of September 27 because Universal did not feel the timing was appropriate given the recent tragic events in Dayton and El Paso. The question one has to answer is more 'would it ever be an appropriate time to release this film' - at least in the foreseeable future given the current fractured state of both politics and society in the US?

To put the thread in context, the film begins with a group of twelve red-state worker types coming to and discovering that they have been abducted by a group of elitist jet-setters (very much blue-state) for the purpose of being hunted down as human sport in the ultimate 'big-game safari' (sort of like The Hunger Games for adults if you like). Predictably, one of the group decides to fight back and bloody mayhem ensues.

Originally titled Red State Vs Blue State (though this is denied by Universal) the film elicited some measure of disquiet amongst it's audience at a couple of test-screenings, principally on the grounds of it's overt representation of the current political/social situation in the US and depiction thereof of a descent into all-out savagery between the haves and have-nots. It didn't help that the intended victims of the hunt are referred to as 'deplorables' by their elitist abductors - a reference perhaps to Hilary Clinton's use of the phrase 'a basket of deplorables' to refer to some elements of the Trump support in the last US election campaign.

Of course Trump himself has had an input into the situation, saying that it's Hollywood's typically racist representation of any demographic that is not of it's own 'woke' culture - but in this it is not entirely clear that he has actually grasped the thrust of the film's direction. This notwithstanding, it appears that he might have had something to do with the pulling of the film from it's intended release slot, and in this (if it is the case) I think he would have been right. Purely out of sympathy for the families of those whose lives were lost in the shootings refered to it would not have been appropriate for a film trailer campaign to have been in full swing that depicted the two ends of American society turning upon each other to such vicious effect. The question is whether, at any point, it would be wise to feed such ideas and imagery into the already volatile pot of animosity and prejudice that pertains in the country (both in politics and the wider society) today?

[wayfriend]

Sometimes when you see a trailer for a movie you instantly know you'll never watch that movie. The Hunt was one of those ones.

I mention this because, according to my sensibilities, it looks too insipid to ever be released in the first place. (Yes, I could be wrong.)

And you can't put it past the production company to pull a movie because it came out really bad, but CLAIM they pulled it because they are so sensitive. Save face and score points at the same time.

That being said ... yeah, there is a better time to drop it. Remember, it's REALLY about whether the critics will say it was a bad time to drop it. When that seems less likely, they will release it.

But I see direct-to-hulu in this one's future.