This is frankly a shonky bit of exploitative nonsense that, in a way, recalls the classic horror films that feminist film theorist Carol J Clover wrote about so perceptively in her foundational tome Men, Women and Chainsaws. Such films – in this case, on an island where vile rich men espousing misogynist views hunt down and kill the women they’ve trafficked there – only to turn the tables in the last act when the “final girls” triumph so that female viewers might experience a cathartic thrill of vengeance.
That said, one gets the impression that the film-makers on Hunt Club, starting with screenwriters David Lipper (who has a supporting role here) and John Saunders, and director Elizabeth Blake-Thomas, aren’t taking any of this that seriously. The film seems to revel in the low-budget tackiness of it all, caking the underwear-clad extras in fake blood, and casting icons of schlock cinema (Mickey Rourke, Casper Van Dien) in key villainous roles.
