For the week of June 8th, Universal Studios Home Entertainment's is bringing The Hunt to Blu-ray. The only reason to watch this listless, violent satire is for star Betty Gilpin. I realize that not every Blumhouse venture can be Get Out, but even when compared to the likes of Truth or Dare or Ouija, The Hunt stands out as risible trash. How anyone could bungle the hardiest of all genre subjects - a riff on The Most Dangerous Game, wherein a bunch of rich maniacs hunt a group of poor nobodies for sport - is beyond me, but The Hunt compromises itself almost from the jump. Blame the thick layer of political commentary. See, the bad guys (led by Amy Madigan, Reed Birney, Steve Coulter, Glenn Howerton, and Hilary Swank, who's overacting wildly but is, I confess, pretty enjoyable to watch) are obnoxious billionaires who grouse about vegetarian food and trigger warnings and misgendering and political correctness and climate change and gun control - hell, the film posits they're lashing out at "deplorables" (the film's words; not mine) because they've gone crazy over Donald Trump's election. However, their victims (including Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Wayne Duvall, Ethan Suplee, Ike Barenholtz, and Justin Hartley) are largely just as one-note and irritating, a mish-mash of racist, sexist, homophobic ignoramuses who bleat on about fake news and crisis agents and liberal elites and their 2nd Amendment rights. If this were a smarter and funnier movie (like The Death of Stalin or Dr. Strangelove), it might be able to conjure up some of the absurdist nightmare of the current U.S. political situation, wherein tensions between left and right have driven everyone insane. But no: screenwriters Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof (coming off his triumphant Watchmen) present both sides with little nuance and even less wit. They parrot liberal/conservative talking points with the tin-eared imprecision of bad sketch comedy. With one exception, you couldn't care less who lives or dies. But then there's that exception: as the one deplorable who's far craftier than anyone expects, Gilpin delivers the kind of starmaking performance that The Hunt simply doesn't deserve. In a better movie, we'd be talking about her in the same hushed tones as Charlize Theron from Mad Max: Fury Road or Sigourney Weaver from Aliens. Gilpin is that good. Director Craig Zobel largely bungles the action sequences except when Gilpin is cutting through her tormentors. Gilpin clearly went through some kind of intensive conditioning program prior to shooting (perhaps for G.L.O.W., I wonder?), and she's so impressive that Zobel can just pull his camera back and let Gilpin show off her asskicking skills in largely unbroken takes. Narratively, the movie soars off the rails in the third act, yet this was the part I liked the most, since most of it consists of one long, exquisitely brutal hand-to-hand showdown between Gilpin and Swank. In fact, Gilpin's character is so pragmatic and capable that it almost becomes ridiculous (she's able to deduce what country she's in so quickly that I almost expected her to start talking in its native tongue), except Gilpin knows how silly all of this is! She counters with this dizzy, underplayed affect that's equal parts Jason Bourne and Jeff Goldblum. Her line readings seem to surprise her half the time, and she gets so much mileage out of a cockeyed stare or knowing side-eye. Ultimately, that's the biggest reason to resent The Hunt - Gilpin won't get the boost that this performance warrants.
From Lionsgate Home Entertainment comes Marc Meyers' We Summon the Darkness. For its first (and superior) act, this thriller benefits heavily from whatever you don't already know about the film. So if you'd like to remain unspoiled, stop reading now, and check out We Summon the Darkness on your own. For everyone who sticks around, I'll still try to avoid overt plot twists, but mild spoilers will follow. What works so well in this opening thirty-ish minutes is the slow burn. It's 1988, and we're in Indiana as three young women (Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, and a terrific Alexandra Daddario) drive to a metal concert out in the middle of nowhere. On the radio, the airwaves vacillate between doomsday proclamations from a Kenneth Copeland-like religious zealot (Johnny Knoxville, believe it or not) and ominous newscasts detailing a series of grisly, Satanic-panic-themed murders, but Meyers and writer Alan Trezza are in no rush to get to the red stuff. All that content remains in the background. We get to know our three protagonists, who are all believably quirky and real. During the show, they make friends with three fellow metal heads (Keean Johnson, Logan Miller, and Austin Swift, who is - I kid you not - Taylor Swift's little brother), and they, too, get the same believably idiosyncratic treatment. We'd be happy watching these folks get high and talk shop, but the tone starts to darken as they head to Daddario's family home out in the middle of nowhere, and...well, to quote Garret Dillahunt from No Country for Old Men, whoa, differences. To say more would be a little unfair, but it's not revealing too much to note that a) things get very bloody, very fast, and that b) the more frenzied things get, the more challenging it is for We Summon the Darkness to hold your interest. In theory, I like the moves that the film makes - it pivots from Linklater-esque hangout to violent chiller to Coen Brothers-like black comedy to social satire - except the blend is all wrong, with characters making stupid decisions and the filmmaking substituting gore for human stakes. Plus, like The Hunt, there's a ham-fisted "fake news" angle that I found profoundly grating after a while. Still, the setup is good enough that it warrants a viewing, and Daddario proves she's got so much more range and spark than her other high-profile performances have suggested. Gone is the gorgeous-but-empty sexpot of Baywatch and True Detective - she's a real actor, and one who deserves better on-screen treatment.
Finally, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is bringing the 1971 sports drama Brian's Song. If Brian's Song isn't the best made-for-TV movie ever made (after all, we do live in a world where Duel and Behind the Candelabra exist), then it's certainly one of the most memorable ones. The film is deceptively simple. We spend a few years in the lives of Brian Piccolo (James Caan) and Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams), two football rookies trying to make it on the Chicago Bears. Piccolo is kind of a goof and less physically impressive; Sayers is a natural athlete with everything to prove. If you haven't seen the film, you'll know exactly where it's going in its first five minutes - Brian's Song even lets the two men get on each other's nerves at first so that their eventual friendship will resonate all the stronger. Yet "familiar" doesn't equal "bad," and the film proves winning because of its conventions rather than despite them. It's satisfying watching Caan and Williams become the other person's biggest champion. I don't know if either actor has ever been this vulnerable or unguarded on camera. And while I'd never call Brian's Song a message-movie, it alludes just enough to the then-fledgling Civil Rights Movement that the Piccolo/Sayers relationship takes on more force. As a black man, Sayers is used to squaring off against men who might otherwise be his "teammates," whereas Piccolo quickly comes to accept him fully and without prejudices. Still, the reason we're still talking about Brian's Song - the reason an ABC TV movie is getting a Blu-ray release in the first place - is that Brian's Song might hold the title of Greatest Male Weeper. I'm convinced this film taught a whole generation of men how to get in touch with their emotions. Brian's Song is nakedly, openly sentimental about male friendships, and as for what transpires between Brian and Gale in the third act...well, let's just say that Brian's Song borrows a trick from Love Story to even more devastating effect. For such a sweet movie, it's methodical and relentless in terms of how precisely it breaks you down.