An alcoholic drifter must battle withdrawal and psychotic rednecks after he becomes the target of a deranged sporting event in Writer, Directors Joe Dietsch and Louie Gibson‘s bloody thriller, Happy Hunting.

Warren (Martin Dingle Wall) languishes alone in a dingy trailer. Starting his day by filling a coffee cup with straight vodka and gulping it like nectar from the gods appears to be his routine. That is until he receives a cryptic phone call from south of the border telling him he has a recently orphaned son that he must go tend to. We now have our MacGuffin that propels this drunken drug dealer on his ill-fated journey. Tossing a few things into a duffle bag and collecting what he can scrounge together for money, including the last crumbs of meth to pawn off on a desperate buyer, he sets out on the road. Of course, things exactly go well at his transaction and he is now a drunken drifter, being pursued, and in a world of trouble.

Landing in a sleepy “hunting” town of Bedford Flats, Warren hides out in a motel as his pursuers close in on him. What neither party is aware of is that the townsfolk have their own agenda. Collecting drifters, the town sets them loose for the annual hunting festival run by the kindly Sheriff Burnside (Gary Sturm) and his neanderthal son, Junior Burnside (Kenny Wormald). The hunt begins and the small collection of drifters are let loose in the middle of the night to make their escape on foot. Warren is now running hunters, drug dealers, and fighting alcoholic withdrawals, all in an attempt to make it to Mexico. 

Writer’s Dietsch and Louie Gibson certainly know how to create a world of extreme desperation and tension. We’ve seen the insane redneck town thing happen before, many times. However the approach here is a fresh take on a tired story where every character is flawed, yet their motives are understandable and just. Wall’s Warren is a deeply crippled individual that made one decision to do the right thing, landing him in even more trouble. It’s this sympathy that makes the story work, keeping the audience interested rather than resigned to watching the lead be tortured. That being said, what really would have aided the story would have been more bits of pitch black humor. You can see the directors attempting to layer irreverence into the story with clever musical choices, yet we are never really given the chance to laugh or be in on the sick joke of a town that is Bedford Flats.

On a technical level, Happy Hunting features impeccable lensing by Joe Dietsch that opens up the landscape on a grand scale, recalling Roger Deakins’ clean composition and attention to color. The editing, also by Dietsch and Gibson, has a nice pop to it that tap into hints of Robert Rodriguez.

Setting a story in a town in the middle of nowhere, it is totally believable that the townsfolk would begin to build their own values and sensibilities in an attempt to pass the time. Stacking the chips up against the unlikable lead, we sympathize as his ultimate goal is true in attempting to take care of a sone he never knew existed. Caked in blood, dirt, and desperation, Happy Hunting is suspenseful, violent, and visceral yet a hell of a lot of fun.

Happy Hunting will be screening this Friday at 1:00pm as part of The Film Catalogue here.