CITIZEN KANE LOSES BEST PICTURE TO HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY HITCHCOCK'S VERTIGO BOMBS AT BOX OFFICE, DEEMED COMMERCIAL FAILURE KUBRICK'S 2001 TOO CONFUSING, AUDIENCES DEMAND REFUNDS BRANDO REFUSES OSCAR, SENDS APACHE ACTIVIST IN HIS PLACE THE EXORCIST FIRST FILM NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE FEATURING PROJECTILE DEMON VOMIT SPIELBERG'S JAWS BREAKS ALL-TIME BOX OFFICE RECORD LUCAS STEALS SPIELBERG'S BOX OFFICE RECORD WITH STAR WARS SPIELBERG RECLAIMS RECORD FROM LUCAS WITH E.T. WATERWORLD BECOMES MOST EXPENSIVE FILM IN HISTORY AT $175 MILLION SHOWGIRLS SETS RECORD FOR MOST RAZZIES WON BY SINGLE FILM ACADEMY VOTERS ASKED TO ACTUALLY WATCH ALL NOMINATED FILMS CITIZEN KANE LOSES BEST PICTURE TO HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY HITCHCOCK'S VERTIGO BOMBS AT BOX OFFICE, DEEMED COMMERCIAL FAILURE KUBRICK'S 2001 TOO CONFUSING, AUDIENCES DEMAND REFUNDS BRANDO REFUSES OSCAR, SENDS APACHE ACTIVIST IN HIS PLACE THE EXORCIST FIRST FILM NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE FEATURING PROJECTILE DEMON VOMIT SPIELBERG'S JAWS BREAKS ALL-TIME BOX OFFICE RECORD LUCAS STEALS SPIELBERG'S BOX OFFICE RECORD WITH STAR WARS SPIELBERG RECLAIMS RECORD FROM LUCAS WITH E.T. WATERWORLD BECOMES MOST EXPENSIVE FILM IN HISTORY AT $175 MILLION SHOWGIRLS SETS RECORD FOR MOST RAZZIES WON BY SINGLE FILM ACADEMY VOTERS ASKED TO ACTUALLY WATCH ALL NOMINATED FILMS
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FESTIVAL REVIEW

NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Rancid ‘HUNTED’ A Sadistic Episode of Pointless Cruelty and Unchecked Misogyny

By Matt Oakes · October 8, 2020
NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Rancid ‘HUNTED’ A Sadistic Episode of Pointless Cruelty and Unchecked Misogyny

French writer-director Vincent Paronnaud’s (Persepolis) fetid attempt to pair art house with meat grinder results in one of the worst films of the year: Hunted. An impotent rape-revenge fairy tale, which borders on snuff with its malignant streak of cruelty and misogyny, Hunted takes form as a woman (Lucie Debay) is chased through the woods by two psychopathic men.  Issuing threats to “f*ck her to death”, the sexually violent antagonist (played with deranged glee by Christian Bronchart) spends the feature screaming at our heroine that she’s a “f*cking whore” or “f*cking slut”. Charming.

The material is both shallow and deeply unpleasant for the sake of unpleasantness, particularly when the female protagonist in question is deprived of her agency for the majority of the feature. Paronnaud’s attempt to punch up the subtext by evoking magical realism fails to add any real depth and instead comes across as a misguided attempt to counterfeit profundity. Ugly, vapid moral center aside, Hunted is just a barren artistic effort; the allusions to fairy tales end at aesthetic mimicry, giving the feature a raggedy, slapdash quality, with so many discordant accents that you’ll have no idea where it’s supposed to take place. If you still have an inkling to see Hunted anyways, do yourself a favor and see Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge instead, a movie that actually does its avenging angel right. (D)

*Shudder has asked critics to only run capsule reviews of ‘Hunted’

For all our coverage of Nightstream Online Horror Film Festival, click here. 

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