Climate of the Hunter review – intoxicating vampire flick from ‘Backwoods Bergman’
If you’re an aficionado of Oklahoma’s DIY arts scene, you’ve likely heard of “the Flyover Fassbinder” AKA “the Backwoods Bergman” AKA musicanturned-film-maker, Mickey Reece. For everyone else: welcome to the party. This languid and lascivious vampire movie is the first of the indie auteur’s 37 no-budget films to make it much past the US south-west’s film festival circuit. Reece has modestly described his style as “people talking in rooms” – but, oh what people! His other films tell of demonically possessed nuns, cryogenically frozen country singers and Elvis Presley; Climate of the Hunter is a kind of 70s erotic horror pastiche about two middle-aged sisters, Alma (Ginger Gilmartin) and Elizabeth (Mary Buss), vying for the attentions of their house guest.
Philosophising lothario Wesley (Ben Hall) is an old friend, but it seems he’s changed in the two decades since they saw him last. He’s taken to sleeping during the day, has developed an allergy to garlic and is despised by his adult son Percy (Sheridan McMichael), whose camp surliness is very like Dan Levy in Schitt’s Creek). Alma’s conspiracy theorist neighbour BJ Beavers (Jacob Ryan Snovel) is the first to suggest that Wesley might not be “one of us”.
As for Reece’s “rooms”: Climate of the Hunter was clearly shot in someone’s friend’s mother’s off-season holiday cabin, possibly during a week between bookings, but is no less intoxicating for it. The dialogue nicely melds wackiness with melodrama, and every detail, from the nauseating dinner spreads – tuna jello salad, anyone? – to Elizabeth’s severe white eye makeup, is a reminder of what fun even the oddest art films can be. Sure, there’s not much of a plot, but these Mickey Reece movies are a mood unto themselves. The campaign for a BFI season starts here.
• Climate of the Hunter is released on 23 August on digital platforms.