The Most Dangerous Game

<<

Classic Horror Special

>>

Here's one that was recommended as an addition to this list, but it's also not so much what you'd call a horror movie. It's a thriller with some pretty horrific ideas, but it's no monster movie. In fact, in its own way, I'd almost deem is a precursor to slasher films, considering the ideas behind it.

Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) ends up finding himself on a remote island after a luxury cruiser crashes on a reef and capsizes. After wandering around for a while, he discovers Count Zaroff's (Leslie Banks) estate, and is welcomed with open arms. A couple others who have ended up there in their own shipwreck as well, Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and her brother, Martin (Robert Armstrong). However, it turns out that other survivors from Eve and Martin's ship have since gone missing, and in the case of a spoiler no longer really being a spoiler, Bob discovers the reason being that Zaroff has been hunting them on his grounds. The "most dangerous game", therefore, is mankind.

As a pro hunter, Zaroff finds that humans provide a better challenge due to their intelligence. He has also established set rules for the hunt, such as a generous head start at dawn, a knife and some previsions. If the hunted survives until 4:00am, they can leave the island freely. Bob and Eve become next on the list when Bob, as a fellow hunter, refuses to hunt humans with Zaroff. The rest of the film is essentially a survival story to see who the better man is, the hunter, or the hunted.

I believe that this was a first of its kind, but since 1932, the idea of humans hunting humans has been done and done again. Often disturbing, like 'Fortress', sometimes funny, like 'The Pest', it has gotten to the point where if one is made, it's a 'Most Dangerous Game' ripoff of some sort. The movie itself has undergone several remakes, with another one due for 2020, and the last one dated only a few years ago, under the name of 'Never Leave Alive'.

This was one that I particularly enjoyed, and had fun with. For '32, it's actually quite beautifully shot, and the acting here goes from deadpan serious to humorous, providing a pretty good combo of dialogue. But when it gets intense, you can still feel that tension, and I very much enjoyed Banks' performance as the out-of-his-mind hunter who sill acts completely casual throughout the ordeal. He made for a great villain.

I've also always kinda been into the whole idea here of one man playing the determined hunter, and another playing the prey, but a prey that has enough intelligence to fight back by setting traps and the like. I further like the idea of putting a hunter in an animal's shoes so blatantly, and up until this movie, I'm not sure it was ever done. This is one of the first films I can think of that has a sort of environmental protection undertone to it, but it doesn't milk it for all its worth, either.

Though by today's standards, things might come across as a bit hokey, it's still a very fun yet mildly disturbing movie that has withstood the test of time pretty well. Though one might sooner gravitate towards any sort of remade version of this film, I'd still highly recommend watching this version as the one that sort of paved the way for so many new titles it provided inspiration for.

4/5

---