After the big win that was Loop Track, I was ready for another good random horror movie, and let me tell you that I struck gold. A little bit of searching around on Google and Reddit for recommendations of similar films yielded the most perfect result I could have asked for: Hunter Hunter.

Just by the name alone I was intrigued. Hunter Hunter, eh? So it’s going to be a movie about a hunter becoming the hunted, in some way or another. But then the very vague description given, “a thriller that goes full-on horror in the last 10 minutes” sounded like precisely what I was in the mood for. So I plugged in my Apple TV for the first time in months and watched a movie on Shudder for the first time since I initially subscribed to it three years ago. I’m good at money :p

Now, I’ll be honest here, I’ve been struggling with trying to figure out exactly what I want to write about this film. I have been thinking about it almost non-stop since I watched it, and I just can’t get a good mental picture of what I want to put in this review. That’s why I don’t do this professionally. So I’m just writing. I guess we’ll just do the synopsis thing and see where it goes.

Hunter Hunter is (at least at the beginning) about a fur trapper named Joe, his wife Anne, and their teenage daughter Renee. They live in the wilderness outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba (I, uh… I like this setting) and lead a very simple life. Joe is the kind of man who is set in his ways and is training Renee to follow in his footsteps, but Anne is starting to notice that their way of life is becoming unsustainable and wants to move into a town so that she can get a job and Renee can go to school.

I happened to catch a glimpse of a very distressing illustration while clearing my Facebook notifications the other day. But like, distressing in a good way. In the way that, when I learned that said image was inspired by a film called Loop Track, I immediately looked up the most convenient way to watch it (Tubi). And then I proceeded to watch it that very same evening.

Loop Track is a horror/suspense movie about a weird, little guy that goes on a hike through a New Zealand forest. New Zealish? New Zealandian? I don’t know. It’s irrelevant and this bit works better in VO. Anyway, off the bat, we learn that this guy is very on edge and isn’t terribly interested in any sort of human interaction. He’s also poorly equipped for the expedition: he starts off the hike in a sweatshirt and jeans, and is visibly winded once he reaches the first trail marker, which is only 10 minutes from the parking lot. In fairness, he does at least have a big ol’ pack of supplies with him and apparently the nights get very cold, but still… I can’t help but think that you’d be so much better off without that sweatshirt, man.

After barely managing to avoid coming into contact with a couple other hikers on the trail twice, our hero is accosted by an excessively friendly man named Nicky. Nicky seems like a nice enough dude, but completely fails to catch the hint that our main character would rather hike alone and insists that they continue on together. At this point, about 20 minutes in, we finally learn that the main character’s name is Ian.