Intensity 🩸🩸out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Annick Blanc
Hunting Daze explores the complications of stacking up bad decisions when a male bonding session in the woods of Quebec is injected with a headstrong young woman and a mysterious stranger entering their insular group.
Acclaimed Canadian short film director Annick Blank’s first feature film had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin. It was included in the SXSW Midnighter slate of films, which usually indicates the darker, rowdier side of the festival, including horror films. SXSW promoted Hunting Daze as a horror film, and while the plot managed to amplify tension and suspense, it doesn’t quite comfortably land as a horror picture.
Going into the film thinking it was going to be a horror film did add some extra stress in the story that I’m not sure would have been there otherwise. Waiting for the turn, for something awful and monstrous to occur, largely does not happen. The “pack” of men are foolish and immature, wrapped up in their own hyper-masculine tribal bonding rituals. But, they aren’t all that evil. Stupid? Yes. Craven? At times, yes. Tragic. That too.
Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don’t get drunk and high when you have high-powered hunting rifles scattered throughout your cabin. Bad things are inevitable to happen.
The Ensemble:
Nahéma Ricci plays Nina, a prostitute who is stranded on the side of a road due to her handler’s idiocy. Out of frustration, she returns to the cabin in the woods, where she has entertained a group of hunters having a bachelor party.
Bruno Marcil plays Bernard, the senior member of the hunting pack. Bernard is the Alpha of the group, and the director of the activities.
Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi plays Kevin, the youngest of the group. A handsome and earnest social worker, he’s very much a follower within the pack.
Marc Beaupre plays Phillipe, anointed as the philosopher of the hunting party, and the owner of the
Alexandre Landre plays LP, the bachelor for whom this whole hunting trip was arranged.
Maxim Genois plays Claude, a quiet and aggressive young man. Not the brightest of the bunch.
Noubi Ndiaye plays Doudos, whom Kevin picks up on the road and brings back to camp. He’s a mystery to the group and seems to have shamanic powers… or at least some really good drugs.
A Short Synopsis
We meet Nina on the side of the road, waiting angrily with her fellow prostitutes who ran out of gas. Rescue comes in the form of Kevin, who is part of a group of hunters whom the women were partying with just before their fuel mishap. Kevin arrives with gasoline, but rather than head back with the other girls, she decides to head back to the cabin in the woods with Kevin.
Nina’s surprise return thrills the hunters, now giddy with bachelor party-infused enthusiasm. Bruno, the party leader, insists that the men vote on whether to let Nina stay with them or cast her out in the woods. They blindfold Nina, and one by one, they elect to keep her—conditionally. If she stays, she has to run through a gauntlet of trials to become “one of the pack.” Nina easily handles the fraternity party tricks, setting off a wild night of shenanigans.
The men invite Nina to accompany them on their seemingly sacred deer-hunting expedition the following morning. She proves to be a natural huntress. Nina kills a deer, much to the joy of her new pack mates. Following their successful hunt, Kevin returns with another stray hitchhiker. Doudos is a mysterious soul. His African heritage differs from the rest of the Quebecois hunting party. Even his road-side pickup story is exotic, like a fable. And, much to the delight of the hunters, Doudos has arrived with some powerful hallucinogens.
Doudos also gets the opportunity to go through the brotherhood rituals, and a wild night of partying ensues. This time, though, getting drunk and high when playing with fire and with plenty of hunting rifles lying around proves to be a terrible idea. The bachelor party turns tragic, compounded by terrible decisions enforced by their own code of secrecy.
Evaluation
I admired Hunting Daze, though I often found myself frustrated by the characters’ poor decision-making. These are all individually decent people who crash badly in the name of brotherhood bonds. Because it was billed as a horror movie, a veneer of tension was elevated because the motives of the hunters were ambiguous. First, the threat of sexual aggression was pervasive in Nina’s trials. Then, the prospect of racial aggression was presented when Doudos went through the same gauntlet.
It turns out the hunters were just overly bro-ish and eager for a hedonistic night of rowdiness. The intent to do harm wasn’t there. This changed, though, when the tragedy struck. Self-preservation and fear make all the characters do awful things. They panic. Bad instincts, when applied to questionable ethics, are a toxic brew. Also, Nina is not immune, either. She makes a catastrophic decision at the movie’s conclusion that will send many audience members reeling.
Beyond the more obvious take-down of toxic masculine behavior, Blanc also inserted a number of more poetic sequences into the film. Nina has dream sequences that evoke strong imagery, but proved difficult for me to place into the context of this film. A wolf. Nina on a witch’s bonfire pyre. A rain of blood. A rifle on fire. There are also suggestions that Duodos might not be real… or human. Interesting, but to what end? I couldn’t connect the dots, and I suspect your enjoyment of the film would depend on your ability to understand the metaphors.
Conclusion
The movie has a short run time of only 70 minutes. This was enough to convey the story, but the most powerful sequences at the film’s end come in a rush. I’m not sure that extending these sequences would have helped, but I felt somewhat unsatisfied at the conclusion. It has a definitive and powerful ending, but the narrative threads seem tenuous when I look back at how we got there.
Blanc certainly has an artist’s vision, a keen visual style, and messages to tell. As she develops as a filmmaker, I hope we will see more of these attributes on the screen. Her success as a short filmmaker is where the artistic elements come to bear. Hunting Daze has, at its core, good acting and a simple story. The connective tissue is where the complexities lie. Perhaps I will better understand what she is trying to convey next time. Maybe something was lost in the French translation for me.
From a horror critic’s standpoint, it lacks the visceral punch and looming threat that a good horror film musters. However, it is a compelling film, even if the narrative nuance got past me.
Hunting Daze had its world premiere at SXSW. The film is not rated by the MPAA, but would probably warrant an R-rating for violence and drug use.