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Hunter Hunter Movie Review

Hunter Hunter is a 2020 horror movie directed by Shawn Linden and starring Camille Sullivan. It’s a genre-bending, twisty and gory flick that is genuinely effective in its thrills.

A fur trapper leaves his wife and daughter behind to kill a rogue wolf in the remote wilderness. But they soon become increasingly worried when a severely injured man shows up to disrupt their peaceful existence. The movie starts as your standard family drama set in the wilderness akin to ‘Leave No Trace’. We see the family live their lives in detail and this is the only peaceful part of the story.

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Then, everything changes when a wolf is brought into the picture. This is where the film becomes a survival thriller with some very eerie sequences. But in the most original twist of them all, the wolf is discarded as the main villain of the story in favor of a serial killer who kills people in the forest in a sick ritualistic manner.

This is the meat of the story. Yes, the dialogue in the movie is scarce and not all that amazing, but the plot is otherwise quite good. It proposes that humans are infinitely worse than animals and much more dangerous, even in the wilderness itself. The twist worked for me entirely as it was unexpected, but it also brought in a very disturbing revenge element in the third act that was bordering on exploitation.

That ending with the skinning was gruesome and disgusting, but undeniably memorable and truly disturbing. It’s an ending unlike no other in a horror movie as it pulled no punches and was truly unexpected. The performances are solid, but it is Camille Sullivan who is the highlight here as the daring survivor Anne.

Hunter Hunter definitely felt like too many movies mixed into one with the wolf itself being rushed, but overall most of it flowed well due to exciting pacing, excellent editing and good direction. The score is also very scary and intense while the horror scenes are uniformly brutal and unnerving. It’s an original film that really works.

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