Climate of the Hunter (2019)

Peculiar "vampire" film with a quirky personality -- Ben Hall's Wesley loves to go on poetic monologues at the supper table, the kind of cat who loves the sound of his own voice, finding colorful descriptive ways to provide conversation about the stars in the sky and a man in San Paolo with an  "apocalyptic fart" -- set in some point and time that can't quite be pinpointed. This is directed by a guy named Mickey Reece, more recognized in his native Oklahoma, with a ton of films under his belt, and yet so many of us have just recently discovered him thanks to Shudder. I can tell you that if it wasn't for Shudder I wouldn't have even be wise to Climate of the Hunter (2019). I don't get to enjoy the "festival circuit", so the film still went unnoticed unless you had kept up with him or perhaps seen a film at some "fantastic fest". That said, I'm aware of him now, and perhaps if he ever directs another offbeat horror film, Shudder will be its destination. I do admit that I haven't really seriously dived too deep in the Shudder pool, but I'm starting to. I do hope I can continue to delight in the eccentric oddballs like Climate of the Hunter. 

Wesley arrives to his vacation cabin after placing his wife in a nursing home, her mind lost, visiting two sisters, pot-smoking Alma (Ginger Gilmartin) and workaholic Elizabeth (Mary Buss). Elizabeth works at a firm 50 to 60 hours a week, unable to have children, closer to Alma's daughter, Rose (Danielle Evon Ploeger) than Alma. Alma speaks of having "bad blood" with her daughter and sister convinced she is destined for a mental institution. Alma had sold her city condo and "retired" to their cabin, with Elizabeth spending a lot of time there, as if to remain near her. I'm not sure why as Elizabeth can't stand Alma, always making snide remarks and sniping at her with cheapshots. I admit that I find Elizabeth practically unbearable. She has this fixed expression of disdain and contempt for Alma, seemingly on attack anytime there is an opening. Alma smokes her pot, visits her bizarre neighbor (he has this mark under his albino eye, seemingly the result of some attack) with a raspy voice and toxic view of everything around him. He seems like a paranoid crackpot with a lot of time on his hands, with plenty of opinions he shares with Alma, who drags her nervy pooch around when on walks outside.

This film feels very European and Midwestern...some amalgam of flavors that I thought was unique. Like the cabin and wilderness are very Midwestern while Reece's style and the characters were European. The fashion choices of the women, in particular, are loud and vibrant, if sometimes theatrical and outrageous. I loved all of that. The Wesley vampire is aristocratic in his suits and ties, with a manner of speech always full of bombast, grandiloquence, and flowery expression. Wesley just loves to lavish up his language to the sisters, as if looking to impress them or anyone else. He's a writer, hoping to publish a book again, with an estranged son, Percy (Sheridan McMichael). Percy visits Wesley, reminding him that their cabin will soon be sold. Percy just doesn't like his father, never without a face or tone of voice that isn't poisonous. Percy even adds garlic to some salad in order to sicken his vampire father, taking him to task for putting his mother in the home. Percy has written his own poem, an explicit and crude document of one man's violent masturbation when alone after his lady is off cheating on him, describing the lover's big cock and woman's tiny vagina. Compared to his father, Percy isn't showy or elaborate but, instead, has a style quite blunt, to-the-point, with no mincing of words. The spite Percy has for his father is never masked or hidden...their conversations remain tense, cold, and without love. Wesley's philandering and conduct towards his wife remains a source of misery for Percy. So that one visit was quite potent in terms of letting us get a peek into the family life of father and son. The wife, Genevieve (Laurie Cummings), is but a shell...Wesley does have her home with him for a brief spell before Alma makes it her mission to stop him from preying on her family.

After Percy visits, Alma's daughter arrives to the cabin with news of a pregnancy, not at all happy with the selling of the condo. Tag-teaming with Elizabeth, Rose is also convinced her mom has a deteriorating mind. Alma's concerns about Wesley after a disturbing "nightmare" fall on deaf ears as both Elizabeth and Rose eventually are seduced by his charms, each going out of their way to visit him. And, of course, Wesley will feed from them once they are comfortably in his embrace.

The film is full of off-kilter moments such as Alma envisioning old vampires with Bela Lugosi hair styles and Dracula costumes at a card table, one of whom being eventually staked. Before this, Alma is "attacked" by an animated bat that "fogs" into visions. She also sees Wesley as a melancholic Nosferatu morose in a chair, realizing she knew his condition. Elizabeth licks her lips and gets Wesley to go for a walk, eventually sucking on one of his fingers. Wesley envisions rose naked at the supper table and darkly lit as they kiss. The sky has stars that seem unreal and planetary bodies not of this universe. Reece just seems to create this dark fairy tale that doesn't quite fit in the real world. And I'm all about that!

But the film is very talky, with descriptions of meals as the camera locks on specially made gourmet, as if purposely identifying these suppers for a cooking magazine. It sets up the meal before the conversations, so often dominated by Wesley, who has a ton of stories (made-up perhaps, but yarns with quite a lot of detail in the prose) to tell. I got to give it to Hall...he has presence and appeal. He's grandiose and magnetic. Alma is quite kooky while Elizabeth is like a jabbing dagger that cuts. While Alma is the first to be charmed by Wesley, it is Elizabeth who eyes a serious relationship with him. Alma listens to her neighbor who mentions how Wesley acts at night. Eventually Alma finds Wesley "asleep" during the day, his flesh quite pallid, posed very specifically with hands crossed as if buried in a coffin. That sets in motion her plans to stake him. Though Wesley does bite Rose (she is never seen again after their eventual encounter) and Elizabeth, it doesn't seem the latter even remembers or knows he did so, shocked and horrified when Alma acts on her vampire suspicions.

This isn't as concerned with following the vampire formula as it is in the odd characters and their various exchanges. Yes, the vampire tropes emerge, but I never felt Reece cared as much about that as he did developing his own world, smack dab in this woods surrounding cabins, cut off from society. Will this be to everyone's liking? I don't think so. In fact, I think plenty of vampire fans will want their blood-sucking and sex. This is about conversations around the table, about desires in people surfacing, about loneliness and aging. Yes, Wesley is a vampire, but even Elizabeth mentions how he looks "long in the tooth". Elizabeth seems to enjoy mentioning how Alma was once so beautiful, as if to say she has aged out...there is a defined cruelty in how Elizabeth does it, too. It seems as if Elizabeth has a lingering jealousy that can be weaponized now that they have reached a certain age. It seems every character has issues with another character. There is just a lot of bitterness, vitriol, unresolved pain that can't seem to be extinguished. 4/5