Humans Hunting Humans: Allegories of Cultural and Economic Divides across National Boundaries

This chapter attempts to make sense of the recent popularity of films about humans who hunt other humans and the socioeconomic discourses that they develop. More specifically, it focuses on the transnational dimension of the horrific situations that films like Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles 2019), The Hunt (Craig Zobel 2020), and The Forever Purɡe (Everardo Gout 2021) imagine. The introduction to the chapter offers an overview of some key concerns and anxieties that these and other horror films about hunting humans have shown in recent years. The chapter then focuses on The Hunt, a film that subverts and even parodies viewers’ expectations about “hunting narratives” in multiple ways, manipulating viewers’ spatial and political expectations. Through this example, the chapter explores the potential of the notion of “operations” (Mezzadra and Neilson, The Politics of Operations: Excavating Contemporary Capitalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2019) to make sense of the concerns that the film channels. By reading spaces in the film closely and drawing parallels with similar productions, the chapter argues that the social geographies depicted in The Hunt illustrate emerging concerns about the ability of global elites to bend local legislation, engage in corrupt practices across borders, and mold foreign spaces. The narrative development of The Hunt also foregrounds societal fears about the widening income gap.