Climate of the Hunter

I stumbled upon the 2019 horror mystery "Climate of the Hunter" and picked it up as I found the movie's cover to be interesting. And then I read the synopsis and I was definitely intrigued. So I sat down to watch this 2019 movie from writers Mickey Reece and John Selvidge without knowing anything else about the movie.

First of all, I will say that the atmosphere in the movie was definitely unique. They had managed to capture that 1970s feel well enough with costumes, props, music, make-up, hair styles, etc. And that definitely added a good layer to the movie.

And the characters in the movie were well detailed and fleshed out, and they certainly had some interesting and good actors and actresses to portray these characters.

Now, the flaw with "Climate of the Hunter" was the pacing. It was incredibly slow paced, and virtually nothing of any interest happened throughout the movie, which made for a very tedious and mind-numbingly dull movie to sit through.

This is hardly a movie that I would recommend you sit down to watch if you enjoy horror mysteries, much less a movie you should waste your money, time and effort on. Well, unless you like slow paced artistic type of movies, then you might find some enjoyment in "Climate of the Hunter".

My rating of this 2019 horror mystery lands on a mere three out of ten stars. I was sorely disappointed with what "Climate of the Hunter" actually turned out to be, and I had hoped for a more interesting and enjoyable movie. This is without a doubt a movie that I will never sit down to watch a second time.

Alma (Ginger Gilmartin) and her sister Elizabeth (Mary Buss) welcome their friend Wesley (Ben Hall) after twenty years absence at a remote house in the woods. Wesley could be a vampire. They are joined by Wesley's son after father and son have a strange discussion about Wesley's wife.

My favorite scene is the son reading his story to the group. It is the highlight of the movie. It is awkward, strange, and intense. I would have liked for the movie to finish off over that night. The situation is not going to get any better than that. It is creepy and disturbing at the moment. The movie needs to milk that and finish it off with mounting intensity.

There's not many perfect films in the world but this is one of them. From wardrobe to dialogue to acting to music to direction to cinematography to, well, everything. It fails in no area. The tone is perfectly absurd, kitschy, beautiful and dense. The writing is serious, comical, mysterious and magical. It's everything an independent film should be.

It's not really a horror or a mystery. More like an episode of Days of Our Lives set in The Twilight Zone. The 70s vibe is perfect in every way. I'd generally prefer something with more horror, action or bizarre narrative, like Terry Gilliam's work, but Climate of the Hunter is well made and offers something different.

I happen to like movies in which people talk a lot and speak in a way that people don't really speak. Relationship movies that unfold. I stumbled on this on AMC Plus and I'm glad I did. What a weird, uncomfortable, but intriguing movie. The first flashback with the wife and the son is super creepy. Nice use of washed out green tones in that scene, like a 90s Japanese horror movie. I don't want to spoil too much and it's hard to get to the character count without doing it so I'll just say I also appreciate these kinds of indie films in which you don't recognize the actors from anything. It's easier to believe they are really the characters.