What could possibly go wrong when a woman stuck in an unfamiliar place decides to join up with five guys on a hunting trip? Some hazing, seemingly good fun, and then a less pleasant turn of events, as portrayed in Hunting Daze, an interesting specimen screening in the Midnighters section at SXSW that goes from strangely serene to quite unsettling over the course of its brief seventy-nine minutes…
Nahéma Ricci is Nina, who, stranded in the far North of Canada, sets her sights on convincing the five men she meets to give her somewhere to stay. They ask her to make her case and take a vote on whether she’s worth it, and then subject her to antics in the woods that feel almost hallucinogenic, so far from the rest of the civilization that it feels like there can’t possibly be consequences for anyone’s actions. When someone else unexpected shows up, things take a dark turn that doesn’t initially strike Nina as quite as serious as it is, and as soon as she comes to understand what’s actually going on, it may be far too late to turn back.
Hunting Daze is the feature directorial debut of Annick Blanc, whose past credits as a producer with Canadian production company Midi La Nuit include the Oscar-nominated live action shorts Brotherhood and Fauve. While this film is certainly less grim than those two endeavors, it still has a sense of darkness that envelops it, which may be inviting for some viewers and off-putting for others. It dives right into the denseness and inescapability of its own universe, offering audiences a pathway into what feels like its own segment of society that exists only in this deserted space. It’s an intriguing if fleeting look at gender, groupthink, culpability and much more that scratches the surface of something truly worthwhile but doesn’t quite dig deep enough to reach it. C+
Hunting Daze is screening in the Midnighters section at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.