The Big Picture
Hunting Daze
is a French-Canadian film exploring animalistic human behavior, set during a bachelor party weekend in a remote cabin.
The film features a strong, unpredictable script, making for a compelling character study, mainly focusing on Nina, played by Nahéma Ricci.
Director Annick Blanc’s impressive feature debut exposes the hypocrisy of humans and their treatment of each other and animals, with a stellar cast and a minimalistic approach.
In Ireland and the UK, bachelor parties are known as “stag dos” or simply “stags.” When you watch a movie like Annick Blanc’s Hunting Daze (or Jour de Chasse in French), that woodland moniker makes perfect sense. Their French-Canadian feature debut revolves around a bachelor party weekend and sees a group of white men, a young woman, and a Black man descend into animalistic madness. Set over a few days in a remote cabin outside of Montreal, the film strips humans back to their roots and exposes us for the real monsters that we are. When they fall back into their animalistic tendencies, they fall back into the food chain, and Hutning Daze shows what happens when that order gets disrupted. The film does not set out to make any grand comments on the world or society — Triangle of Sadness this is not. But by keeping the location (and by extension, scope) tight and small, it manages to craft a compelling, revolting, and sharp condemnation of humans and how we treat each other. Leave all expectations at the door, as this film will have you think it’s all about one event and then five seconds later, something even bigger will shock you.
Hunting Daze (2024)
Nina, a tempestuous young woman, joins a group of hunters at a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness. As she integrates into their male-dominated micro-society, the arrival of a mysterious stranger sets off a series of unsettling events. Themes of toxic masculinity and survival unfold in a blend of horror and psychological drama.
Release Date March 9, 2024
Director Annick Blanc
Cast Nahéma Ricci , Bruno Marcil , Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi , Marc Beaupré , Alexandre Landry , Maxime Genois , Noubi Ndiaye
Runtime 79 Minutes
Writers Annick Blanc
What Is ‘Hunting Daze’ About?
The movie opens with Nina (Nahéma Ricci) getting ditched by her pimp after a heated argument on a quiet background in the middle of the Canadian countryside, ostensibly near Montreal. Her friend (and sometimes client) Kevin (Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi) who has just brought them gas, takes in Nina at her behest and brings her to his friend’s bachelor party weekend (or more accurately, stag weekend). The group is led by the older and dominant Bernard (Bruno Marcil) with his cronies made up of the groom-to-be and easily led astray LP (Alexandre Landry), the bombastic Claude (Maxime Genois), and the pensive and calculated Phillippe (Marc Beaupré).
They take one look at the young Nina and the audience only thinks one thing is going to happen (the film makes a strong case for not needing explicit scenes of assault to explore misogyny and unsafe spaces for women). As I said, leave all your expectations at the door. They put Nina through an intense hazing ritual that includes her shooting a gun while keeping an egg and spoon in her mouth. They teach her to hunt, and it seems that they may have just taken her in as their own. But when Kevin rescues another “lost soul,” Doudos (Noubi Ndiaye), the weekend of blustering fun gives way to the food chain and a demonstration that humans aren’t so different from the animals we hunt.
‘Hunting Daze’ Doesn’t Offer Much Backstory
Image Via ArtHood Entertainment GmbH
Clocking in at just 79 minutes, Blanc has no time to waste. Less than two minutes in, Nina is being called a “whore” repeatedly and we witness a heated fight between two people whose shared history we know nothing about. Blanc makes the very risky decision to ask us to root for and invest in a character that she barely introduces. But due to Nina being such a compelling and strong character as well as the very natural inclination to worry for her as she is surrounded by older men, the frustration at knowing anything about her past wears off quickly. Hunting Daze is a character study, mainly of Nina, but also of how these five, then six, people all treat each other and how their behaviors can shift in the blink of an eye.
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You better have some tissues nearby as this movie will have you crying your eyes out.
To detail what exactly happens during this fateful weekend would be to spoil the wild ride of an experience that this movie offers. The group hunts, dances, drinks, and just when you think Nina is at one with these men, and then Doudos as well, the entire equilibrium crashes. There are elements of Lord of the Flies in how the group crafts their own society (while still being a microcosm of society at large), and hints of Promising Young Woman as, when tragedy strikes, the characters will do whatever it takes to avoid taking responsbility for their actions. But Hunting Daze still remains its own beast in how it has you thinking it’s one kind of story in one moment, and then in the next scene, your perspective of the movie has totally changed. It’s a film you have to sit back and let wash over you, as it doesn’t give you much time to digest what you’ve seen. Its greatest strength is by far how unpredictable the script is while still maintaining a pervading thread throughout that connects the start to the end. By the conclusion, you’ll feel just like how the characters do — hungover, exhausted, and ravished.
‘Hunting Daze’ Is an Impressive Feature Debut From Annick Blanc
Annick Blanc herself was there to present the film and she was quick to tell the audience that this is not a horror movie by conventional standards. She warns us that the movie gets its scariness from how the humans behave. While Hunting Daze would be accurately described as a psychological thriller rather than a horror movie, Blanc throws a lot of pseudo-horror imagery at us. Skinning and shedding one’s outer layer is a recurring motif, both metaphorically and physically. One scene of a deer getting skinned is captured with meticulous, unflinching detail. It’s an intensely sophisticated film for a feature debut. Blanc knows exactly when to close in on a character and capture every last detail of their face as they silently deliberate their next movie. Then the camera opens wide to present the collective group in all their jovial, sick, and delirious mayhem. Blanc expertly brings the audience into this patriarchal cataclysm and doesn’t let us out until the very last shot. All set against the backdrop of a disconcertingly beautiful landscape that still harbors an eerie atmosphere, Hunting Daze is a vibrant juxtaposition of the beauty and danger of nature and primality.
Nahéma Ricci Leads a Stellar Cast in ‘Hunting Daze’
Image Via KVIFF
To make a fairly thin plot into such an exhilarating experience, Blanc’s main asset is the cast. Nahéma Ricci excels in the lead role of Nina even as Blanc doesn’t give any set-up or backstory. The audience is immediately thrown into Nina’s perspective, and while it may take a minute to fully invest in her, once you do, you can’t take your eyes away from her. Ricci plays the terrified survival mode to perfection, always maintaining a subtle layer of vulnerability and fear under Nina’s bombastic and confrontational demeanor. Each of the men plays their own character affectation (seven dwarves but make it patriarchal) that makes them both stand out alone and fit into the group like a jigsaw piece. Bruno Marcil is brilliant as the gruff leader who forms a special connection with Nina. His flicker between protectiveness and intimidation plays into the capricious nature of the script, shifting the scene from relaxed to tense in a second. Noubi Ndiaye’s Doudos is asked to do a different form of acting, some theatrical and some completely silent. His face alone expresses a million conflicting feelings, and he becomes the tragic hero of this desolate story.
One of the many, many pieces of advice Bern gives Nina is to use her hunger to hunt her next food. This forms the thesis of the entire movie. Hunting Daze exposes humans for all our animal behavior, honing in on the hypocrisy of humans deeming woodland creatures inferior when we act the very same to them. Polished off by a vibrant cast, Annick Blanc’s feature debut is an impressive feat and a refreshing and minimal twist on the “eat the rich” trend in Hollywood.
REVIEW
Hunting Daze (2024)
Hunting Daze is an exhilarating and tense thriller that strips humans back to their most animalistic tendencies.
ProsNahéma Ricci leads a spectacular cast, commanding the screen as Nina.Hunting Daze is a more minimal twist on the Eat the Rich movie, examining a small-scale example of a patriarchal society.Annick Blanc directs and writes a tense drama with lots of surprises you won’t see coming. ConsThe movie doesn’t offer any set-up or backstory, so some audiences may find it difficult to immerse themselves in the story.
Hunting Daze screened at the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.