Some movies are historically important and hugely influential but a chore to sit through. It’s heresy to some yet I’ve never enjoyed the likes of Citizen Kane, The Third Man, Chinatown or Seven Samurai. The pre-Code horror flick The Most Dangerous Game is a lot more to my acidic taste, centring on a sicko big game hunter who prefers stalking humans to boring, smelly rhinos.
Based on a short story published eight years earlier, Game’s succulent premise is routinely revisited in flicks such as The Running Man, Hard Target and recent dross like The Hunger Games. Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen even copied such perverted thrills in real life (as tamely captured in the underwhelming Nicolas Cage vehicle, The Frozen Ground). Arnie’s Predator remains the best variation on the theme, but the original 1932 version is well worth seeking out.
Expert hunter Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) is taking a trip on a luxury yacht. He’s a smug, entitled shit, happy to joke about destroying magnificent wildlife. “What makes you think it isn’t just as much sport for the animal as for the man?” he asks an objector.
Um, because you carry a high-powered rifle, mate…? Tackle a tiger with your bare hands and then you’ll win my respect.
Thankfully, the yacht immediately runs aground and Bob has to swim ashore. Here he meets a bunch of other shipwreck survivors in the fortress home of Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks). The impeccably dressed Zaroff is a fantastic character, urbane, articulate and pretty good at tinkling the ivories. He’s also a keen hunter and has read Bob’s books on the subject. “My hand was made for the trigger…” he tells Bob. “My life has been one long glorious hunt… We barbarians know that it is after the chase, and then only, that man revels… Hunt first the enemy and then the woman. What is woman until the blood is quickened by the kill? One passion builds upon another. Kill… and then love.”
Game is a short, fast-moving, surprisingly sadistic treat full of tasty dialogue and inspired touches. It features cinema’s first shark attacks, a sinister mute Cossack servant, an unforgettable trophy room, a first-class villain, the threat of rape, hunting dogs getting stabbed and the world’s greatest doorknocker – all while standing the whole notion of civilised behaviour and barbarism on its head.
No doubt it will continue to inspire imitators, although they’ll have to work hard to come up with anything grubbier than Open Season.
Synopsis: Three Vietnam vets mistake a vacationing couple for VC. Sort of.
Director: Peter Collinson
Cast: Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, Richard Lynch, Cornelia Sharpe, Alberto de Mendoza
What are these sick bastards doing? Just like Game’s evil Count Zaroff, Ken, Greg and Art (Fonda, Law and Lynch) love a game of ‘outdoor chess’ during their annual two-week vacation. First they need some pawns so they pull over the adulterous Nancy and Martin (Sharpe and de Mendoza) and whisk them away to their wilderness cabin.
How do the lovely ladies fare? Our ex-soldiers warm up by enjoying a spot of group sex in a motel with two waitresses. Fair enough, it’s all consensual, but it suggests an unhealthy bond between these fellahs. Things take on a darker hue when they get back on the road and start scoping ‘prospects’. They spot Nancy at a service station in a bright red top getting to grips with a foldout map. Greg is impressed, but Art’s a little hesitant. “She’s a little light in the jug department,” he complains. Greg’s having none of it. “No, she’s tight. Very tight.” Art, however, comes round to Greg’s point of view upon seeing her bend over.
Once kidnapped, Nancy is expected to cook and clean, occasionally while chained. She plans to use her feminine wiles, though, to persuade them to let her go or at least find out what’s being planned (“I think Ken likes me.”) Her naiveté in trying to wrest back a bit of control – even if that means faking orgasms – is almost touching.
How skuzzy are the men? The trio is initially shown as regular guys playing ball with the kids and enjoying a backyard feed with the neighbors. They even drive off in a nice, normal station wagon. There’s horsing around, in-jokes and songs. They might love a laugh, but during the abduction it’s clear there’s steel in their warnings. These are experienced criminals.
Ken appears to be the de facto leader, but they don’t have strong individual personalities. Collectively, however, they’re a beast with an M.O. that consists of geniality, faux concern, enforced politeness and the odd outright threat. Everything might be theater (with them forever putting on a show to amuse each other), but the underlying drive is to subdue their captives.
Just look at Art getting irked when Martin refuses a stick of gum on the boat ride out to the isolated cabin. He removes his own gum and forces it into Martin’s mouth at gunpoint. “You gotta learn how to take orders,” he tells him. This lesson is reinforced upon reaching their destination. “One of the first things you have to learn about camping is politeness,” Ken calmly informs Martin after an understandable outburst. “That way everyone keeps off everyone else’s nerves.”
Once inside they insist Nancy and Martin are ‘guests’, even after constricting Nancy’s movements. Or as Ken says: “We provide the cabin, the food, you cook and clean, we hunt. In the evenings maybe have a little fun, everybody’s happy.” The trio clearly enjoys the fake domestic harmony, even standing up before Nancy sits at the dinner table.
The pivotal scene arrives during a game of Monopoly after a satisfying day’s hunting. All three kidnappers are drunkenly the worse for wear while Art plays a concertina and ominously sings Run, Rabbit Run! Nancy, sandwiched between Ken and Greg on the sofa, even joins in on the chorus. Greg starts kissing her while Ken steals a cuddle. Martin can only stare like a statue at the group ‘seduction’ as Greg turns and asks him with blunt contempt: “Did you finish the dishes?” Such a queasy moment enables Open Season to really worm its way under your skin.
Ken then fingers the small gold cross around Nancy’s neck while asking: “Are you being forced to do something you don’t want to do?” Dancing follows. Nancy’s a rag doll. Later we hear Ken fucking her and her apparently satisfied moans as the other two wink at each other in the dark awaiting their turn.
Unlike Count Zaroff, these three prefer their sex before the kill.
Would the violence make a vicar faint? Well, I think he’d be all right, especially during the first half. There’s nothing graphic or explicit, although he’d probably be a bit antsy about the sex outside of marriage. Probably wouldn’t be too chuffed about the killings, either. All in all, he’d have to endure an increasingly vivid portrait of cheerful psychopathy.
How fucked-up is this film? Open Season does not enjoy the best reputation and you’ll find some reviews condemning it as sick. Nevertheless, I think it’s nicely directed while the five central performances ring true as it cruelly powers toward a tense finish. Director Collinson shows some skill in keeping the viewer off-balance during the fairly quiet opening forty-five minutes by utilizing jokey banjo music, lots of guffawing, the trio’s creepy insistence on politeness, and a lack of violence. The editing, including the use of still photos, is unusual. He also employs humor, exemplified by an off-key rendition of All Things Bright and Beautiful as our colorful Vietnam vets wander around the woods blasting the shit out of anything furry or feathered.
In addition, Martin’s emasculation is particularly well handled. He’s a married, middle-aged teetotaller who works with computers at a bank. Clearly a decent guy (even if cheating on his wife with the much younger Nancy), he initially clings to the hope that the abduction will lead to a ransom demand. After all, that’s rational. However, by the time he’s been forced to drink bourbon to the tune of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow he knows at the very least the abductors want a piece of Nancy. By the end he’s become a meek servant, broken by the knowledge they’ve taken his woman and he’s not able to fight back. There’s also the lingering torment over whether or not Nancy is enjoying the attention (“Nancy’s getting to be one of the guys!”) All Martin can do is perform light domestic duties while sensing doom in the clean forest air.
If you lap up early 70’s blokey stuff like Deliverance, Straw Dogs and Wake in Fright, then Open Season should satisfy. I generally hate the term ‘toxic masculinity’ (as it’s often applied to the most minor male transgressions these days) but this terrible threesome’s fondness for guns, wildlife slaughter, rape, hard drinking and ritualised murder means it’s well-earned.
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