Preying on the Other: Culture Wars Narratives in Horror Hunting Films

The culture wars that had ebbed and flowed in contemporary discourse in the United States since the end of the Cold War escalated sharply with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. His election polarized American society and entered popular cultural tropes, including horror films. It seems that the culture wars constructed an ideological “Other,” a monstrous Other who evinces the main features of the horror monster: it is menacing, as it aims to annihilate a preferred way of life, and it is disgusting, as it expresses a morally repugnant way of life. This chapter examines the ways in which this ideological, cultural Other is observed in horror hunting films. We explore horror hunting films that place human against human in a display of misanthropic conquest. We also review the main premise of this sub-genre of horror fiction and note its main characteristics. We then turn our attention to the horror hunting film The Hunt (Craig Zobel 2020), focusing on how the film narrativizes contemporary culture wars issues. We argue that through a satiric treatment of the culture wars, it lays near the clash of values that underpin them.