'It's a fun movie, I promise': behind the elites v 'deplorables' thriller The Hunt
“I certainly didn’t make the movie to try and gin up controversy,” said Craig Zobel, director of the most controversial movie of not only this year but last year as well, a potato so hot that it was briefly deemed untouchable. The Hunt, a schlocky thriller that also happens to be a broad satire on political extremism in the US, was originally scheduled for release last September, but after the Dayton and El Paso shootings the month before, it faced an uncertain future.
The plot imagines a Hunger Gamesstyle playground where liberal elites hunt “deplorables”, AKA Trump voters, in a variety of gruesome ways. Initially, the film’s marketing campaign were paused out of respect (even a satirical use of such heavy artillery was not deemed appropriate at the time) but matters worsened when details about the film’s red state v blue state setup started to disseminate and rightwing anger travelled all the way from Fox News to the White House. Trump didn’t name the movie specifically but in a tweet on 9 August, he called Hollywood “racist”, “really terrible” and said some of the films being released are “very dangerous for this country”. On 10 August, The Hunt was taken off the schedule.
For a time, there were questions over whether we would ever get to see The Hunt, at least on a big screen, with rumours that Universal might consider selling it to an online streamer. But with a tweaked marketing campaign, one that now revels in its toxic infamy, it re-emerged earlier this year and now, finally, it’s being unleashed on the public.
“It’s been a long road,” Zobel said to me on the phone from Los Angeles, sounding understandably wearied. “You make a movie hoping that people get to see it and now people finally do and I think I’m just excited to hear people’s responses.”
The Hunt began with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and his Leftovers co-writer Nick Cuse crafting a devilish way to update Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, centred on a brutal human hunt, for an increasingly fractured America. Zobel, whose big-screen credits had included grim fact-based fast-food drama Compliance and post-apocalyptic saga Z for Zachariah, had also directed a number of episodes of The Leftovers and was immediately drawn to the idea.
He had just moved from the liberal safe haven of New York City to Athens, a smaller city in Georgia, a state that voted for Trump in 2016. “I realised I was making assumptions about these people that lived around me,” he said. It led him to crave something that would both explore and poke fun at the ideas that we have of those on the opposing side so it was kismet when the script came his way. “We found out that we had all been individually thinking about this stuff and that it was the perfect time for us to tell this story,” he said.
For a while, the stars seemed to align. Blumhouse, the hit-making company behind Get Out and Paranormal Activity, jumped onboard, as did Universal and a cast including two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, Glow breakout Betty Gilpin and Ryan Murphy. Emma Roberts quickly signed on. But then things went sour and a Friday night B-movie suddenly became the subject of noxious debate, referred to as “demented”, “evil” and “dangerous”. Before anyone had even seen it.
“It felt bizarre because the film was supposed to be an absurd satire and was not supposed to be serious and boring and I felt that the conversation immediately got serious and boring,” Zobel said. “I was just the person, over in the corner, maintaining ‘It’s a fun movie, I promise! I just want people to see it!’ because it’s a film that’s essentially about the assumptions you make about something without really knowing anything about it.”
Making an assumption about something without really knowing anything about it has become a signature move for the US president although nothing could have prepared Zobel for the surreal moment of seeing your film tweetdragged by one of the most powerful men in the world.
“I was in the very last days of sound mixing the movie,” Zobel recalled. “I got a text from Ike Barinholtz, one of the actors [in The Hunt], who said I think that the president of the United States just tweeted about our movie. I had to go looking for what he was talking about and pretty quickly just ended up standing outside the soundstage for the rest of the day trying to process and kind of parse what was going on and it was unique. The day that the president tweets something about you or a movie that you made is just a very weird day, it really is.”
The ire aimed at Zobel, death threats included, was predicated on the idea that the film was somehow celebrating the leftists who take bloody revenge on rednecks but, if anything, it works hard at doing the opposite. Zobel sees it as a “fun refuge” rather than an angry dissection of where we are right now. The difficult journey it’s had to reach an audience has found its happy ending with a wide release but it also serves as a warning of how easily filmmakers can get silenced in a culture keen to cancel.
“It isn’t a healthy world, one where everyone is trying to decide whether or not they should make something based on how it’ll be received politically,” Zobel said. “I certainly wouldn’t advocate for that and I don’t think like that, even after this. “I believe that people who have things to say will continue to really have things to say.”
We spoke a week before the reviews came out, which were mixed at best (the Guardian’s Adrian Horton called it “a boilerplate B-movie that doesn’t say nearly as much as it thinks it does”), telling a cautionary tale of the dangers of hype. The film that Zobel saw as “playful and fun” had mutated into something with far more to carry on its shoulders. Ultimately, what The Hunt works best as is an action thriller which I told him would please at least one potential audience member, notorious for skipping past dialogue to watch the explosions.
“I think the president might like the movie,” Zobel agreed. “I’m proud of the action scenes in the movie. If he wants to just watch the action scenes, I’m fine with that!”
The Hunt is out now
which is a lot of money, but I still wear it today, and it looks the same as the day I bought it. The most loved item in my wardrobe is a pair of David Beckhamendorsed Adidas shorts I bought when I was 14. I still wear them all the time. The elastic is gone, so I do have to be careful to make sure the drawstring is tied up! They have started to peel a bit.
My mum and dad are always trying to buy me new clothes. They are Thatcher’s children: materialism was drilled into that generation; buying stuff empowers them. My mum recently insisted on buying me a coat, but only because she was so fed up with the old Barbour jacket I had been wearing.
It was my grandad’s Barbour: he has sadly passed away, so I took it from his house after he died. That’s not the only thing I took, actually; I wear my grandad’s old Slazenger boxers. My girlfriend thinks it is really weird.
I loved that Barbour jacket. It was ancient; I kept sending it to the Barbour shop to get it repaired, but they repaired it so many times it was basically a new coat.
I never get bored of my clothes. I think that people are told that they need to buy new clothes to fit in and seem trendy, but it is only you who inherently cares what you look like. People are too immersed in their own lives to notice you only have four T-shirts. That stuff doesn’t matter. We have become so selfish as human beings. We are bred to consume. Nothing has any value any more.
Abi Jenkins, 49, dressmaking teacher from Stockport
I am of Asian heritage: my family is from India and Pakistan. I think that’s why I am really reluctant to buy clothes. It is horrible for me to know that people of my heritage are being abused by the garment industry to produce clothes for people in the west who don’t care about their wellbeing.
I remember watching the footage of the 2012 Dhaka garment factory fire. It was horrific, watching people try to escape. I don’t like to stand on a soapbox and say: “You should do this, and you should do that.” But for me personally, buying clothes isn’t something I want to do. It’s how I am.
Apart from tights and the odd bit of underwear, I haven’t bought any clothes for a decade. I make all of my clothes, myself, by hand. I learned to sew from my mum. She was always immaculate; she never had a hair out of place. Just the sweetest, most caring person. She died recently. When I am sewing, I feel close to her. She really knew how to sew.
Virtually all the fabric I use is vintage. Buying new fabric is really the same as buying fast fashion, in my book. Why do we need new fabric? There’s already so much beautiful fabric in the world. I work with a charity called Tools for Self Reliance, and they get donated lots of old material. If I see something I like the look of, I pop a donation in the collection box. I also have reams and reams of fabric that I purchased in the 1980s from a dressmaking shop: it was closing down, and the owner let me have it cheap.
Most of the time, I am a bit of a scruff. But when I am teaching dressmaking, I make an effort. You want to look nice, because you’re an advert for the clothes you are teaching people to make. I follow trends on social media, and then teach people how to make the clothes at my workshops. You get all sorts: doctors, solicitors, care workers. They all say it is therapeutic.
I don’t get bored of my wardrobe, because if I want something new I can just nip upstairs to my sewing room and make it. I can make a shift dress in half an hour; I call them my half-hour dresses. I just made a ball gown from old fabric over a few days.
I never want to buy things. I look at things in shops and think the quality is abysmal. My daughter makes her own clothes now. I am so glad she is not spending her pennies in those dreadful shops. But I really don’t want to sound like I’m on my high horse. I just want to educate people.
Jon Watkins, 70, retiree from Llangollen
Everything in my wardrobe is certainly not from this century. I have had the same ties since the 1980s. I think the last time I bought clothes was in 1984: I was on a business trip and they lost my suitcase, so I went to a shop in Rome and bought new suits, shirts, trousers and underwear.
Technically, I could buy clothes. I know where Marks & Spencer is! I just prefer not to go shopping. Ever since Woolworths closed, I can’t think of a decent shop. Shopping is so tedious. I can do a supermarket shop, because I have to, otherwise I would starve. But that’s it.
I do occasionally get marched to TK Maxx by some lady friends who buy things for me. Whatever they choose is fine. Everything else in my wardrobe seems to arrive! My brother-inlaw gives me shirts and pullovers. It’s usually when people think I am looking mucky that stuff tends to turn up. I never ask for anything new. Hand-medowns look new to me! I can’t tell the difference.
I look like a mess, but I don’t really care. It is the same with haircuts: I only get them if I have got to meet the bank manager or something like that. The only thing I buy for myself is socks and pants.
I have a woman who comes to clean my house for me and she’s not averse to throwing clothes and shoes away that she deems unwearable. I don’t mind as long as she tells me what she’s chucking out, otherwise I spend ages looking for it and can’t find it. She thinks shirts should have all the buttons on them and rubbish like that. They don’t really. As long as there are some buttons, it will work.
Athena Drakou, 59, semi-retired accountant living in West Sussex, but originally from Greece
Thirty-four years ago, I was pregnant with my daughter back home in Greece. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened and pregnant women were advised not to eat any fresh food. That experience really changed my thinking about the environment.
I became an accountant, then moved to the UK and studied environmental science. But my interest in the environment and how we consume clothes never went away. Back in Greece when I was growing up, everything was about consumerism. Being a Greek woman who never went shopping, people thought I was crazy!
I think I have bought one pair of jeans in the past 10 years. That’s it. My wardrobe is basically empty. It is easy to find everything in there. When I need clothes for a special occasion, like a wedding, I either borrow something from a friend, or there are platforms now where you can rent clothes.
It helps that I am the same dress size I was when I was 20. I try to keep fit and not gain weight. Everything in my wardrobe still fits. All my clothes are very good quality: I have a coat that I have worn for 24 years. I take excellent care of it and it’s still in good condition. If you looked at it, you wouldn’t believe I’d had it for so long.
Part of the reason my clothes last is because I don’t over-wash them. I have a rule that I wear everything at least twice – underwear excluded, obviously – before washing it. I can wear jeans five or six times before putting them in the machine. I mend all my clothes. If I need a new sweater, I knit something. My friends will often give me wool or yarn. Knitting helps me relax.
Never buying clothes feels liberating. I love not having to think about clothes all the time. I have a few things in my wardrobe. Everything goes together.
I have a bit of a phobia about new clothes. It is about comfort; I’m very particular about things. I hate clothes that are too clingy or tight. Animal fibres make me really itchy. I think maybe I am a bit allergic to wool.
I like to wear old clothes, because I know they will be comfortable. I don’t like the texture of new clothes at all. It is a bit of a paradox, because in order for things to get old you have got to wear them a lot. If I had the choice between wearing an old item or something new, I’d always go for the old thing.
My wife likes to sneak a few new things in my wardrobe from time to time, so I am better presented. She is into fashion and is always beautifully dressed. But the new things tend to stay in my wardrobe. I don’t wear them. Probably three-quarters of the things she buys me, I never wear.
We’re at a bit of an impasse, my wife and I. She hasn’t stopped trying to smarten me up a bit and get me into some newer things, but I don’t find those things comfortable. It is a longrunning battle, but we have a laugh about it. Sometimes she will drag me into a clothing store, and within 30 seconds I want to walk out.
I am not bothered about my appearance or anything like that. Clothes for me are about comfort. Occasionally I will look at other men and think: “That jumper looks nice. I wish I had something like it.” But then I think that, even if I did have it, I would never wear it.
Additional reporting by Laura Kay
• This article was amended on 12 March 2020 because Athena Drakou became an accountant before she moved to the UK, not after she moved as an earlier version said.
Condoleezza Rice, have led prominent Republican initiatives that, in the past, sparked speculation of potential presidential runs.
The South Carolina senator Tim Scott has more recently stepped forward as one of the president’s most loyal supporters and has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s efforts to appeal to black voters.
Still, as the Republican party began leaning further right in the 2010s, black Americans moved left. The numbers bear out the dominance of the Democrats. More than 88% of black Americans voted for the Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Walker insisted pundits shouldn’t rule out black support for the president this time around.
“Narrowing the wage gap, the First Step Act for prison reform, investing in black colleges,” she said. “Those of us proud of that progress are doing the work of educating the people who are ignorant to it.”
Pew data collected in 2017 found that although “African American voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic”, that identification “has declined modestly in recent years”.
About two-thirds of African Americans identified as Democrats, down from the first half of Barack Obama’s presidency. Back then, about 75% of black Americans were affiliated with the Democratic party.
In addition, Pew noted that just 8% of black voters identify as Republican, the same percentage as voted for Trump in 2016. African Americans are 11% of the American electorate overall.
As Democratic campaigns face increasing demand to center black voter diversity, the Trump administration took notice, investing additional campaign dollars on aggressive outreach to African American communities.
Those initiatives include campaign ads in traditional black media outlets and a slew of “Black Voices for Trump” rallies at makeshift community storefronts in key battleground states.
In a press release announcing the initiative, the Trump campaign pinpointed “record-low minority unemployment rates” and investments in historically black colleges and universities, as evidence of the president’s continued commitment to black communities.
“President Trump has a real record of results for black Americans, and our party is committed to sharing that winning message far and wide,” the Republican national committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, said.
Opponents of Trump point to his controversial past with race, including a history of housing discrimination lawsuits. Although one in six black Americans are the children of immigrants, Trump has called Caribbean and African nations “shithole countries”, recently banning migrants from several African nations.
Most notable are a series of print ads in 1989 calling for the death penalty for the now-exonerated Central Park Five. Authorities involved in the case later said the ads contributed to the black and Latino men’s wrongful convictions.
Walker admits an uphill battle in wooing fellow African Americans who take issue with the president’s record. She counters criticisms of being a “traitor to her race” by contending no one person is representative of the party values.
“If the only reason that you’re a Democrat is because you think the Republicans are racist then you need to go back and figure out why you’re really a Democrat,” she said.
“Racism does not discriminate by party, and you see that playing out right now in the Democratic primaries with misstep after misstep.”
But the vitriol has gotten intense. Walker recalled being unfriended, blocked or disinvited from events many times in recent years.