Climate of the Hunter (2019) – Film Review

Director: Mickey Reece
Cast: Ginger Gilmartin, Mary Buss, Ben Hall

By @Roger Crow

It’s very easy to make a generic horror film. Get a few beautiful twentysomethings, a killer in a mask, some flickering neon tubes, a smoke machine and then knock up a script in about 30 minutes. The result is usually generic and forgettable, but occasionally a horror film comes along that subverts the genre.

This one is described as a cross between Euro-horror classic Daughters of Darkness (one of my favourite genre entries) and George Romero’s vampire tale Martin.

“Remote house”

It’s helmed by the highly prolific Oklahoma-based film-maker Mickey Reece, whose style is reminiscent of Peter Strickland, Jared Hess and late seventies era Brian De Palma.

Strikingly filmed in saturated 70s-style colours, Climate of the Hunter is like nothing else you’ll see this year.

It centres on sisters Alma and Elizabeth, along with a dog who’s described as a “philosopher”. They have come to Alma’s remote house to reconnect with Wesley after 20 years.

Alma is recently divorced, Elizabeth is a workaholic in Washington, DC while Wesley lives in Paris dealing with a wife recently struck with a fatal disease. When the three come together for dinner, it has all the makings of an adult melodrama about loneliness. However, there’s naturally a twist: Wesley could be a vampire.

“On-point”

Unlike some films where a poor script, bad direction or lacklustre actors let the side down, this succeeds on all levels. The cast is great, the script is on-point and it’s well directed. I doubt it will make a huge amount of cash at the box office, but like all cult films it will develop a firm fan base in the months and years to come.

If you liked Twin Peaks, Evil Dead, and countless other weird and wonderful offbeat offerings, then Climate of the Hunter is bound to become a firm favourite.