Roel Reiné is certainly no stranger to animal horror; however, since unleashing both Bear (2010) and Wolf Town (2011), the Dutch filmmaker has focused on actioners. That streak has now been broken with Savage Hunt, a new movie that could have made up for his previous attempts at nature horror, or at the very least showed he had improved in the subgenre. Unfortunately, though, this other bear tale only repeats history as well as reemphasizes Reiné’s complete clumsiness around creature features.
Unlike Bear, Savage Hunt isn’t largely confined to one location, although there is a scene here where the grizzly star traps a family inside a van. Otherwise, this movie has an entire forest to play in and around. After the derivative cold open of young people meeting their gruesome end at the paws of the story’s fuzzy threat, Reiné and the writers, Chad Law and Christopher Jolley, present their halfhearted, ecological narrative.
Passing off Sofia, Bulgaria, as rural Montana, and doing a poor job at that, Savage Hunt follows the consequences of deforestation and habitat destruction. It’s an important message to be reminded of these days, but the movie can’t seem to deliver it with any real focus. In due time, the bear and her wrath are overshadowed by the human characters’ far less interesting or well-written stories. First, we have Anthony Barclay’s character, the foreman of a new resort’s construction site, and his fractured family. Divorce proceedings are squeezed in as the ex-husband and somewhat distant father reluctantly realizes he and his job are to blame for the bear attacks.
Meanwhile, the forest ranger (Fotina Papatheodorou) tracking the mother grizzly is lamenting the loss of her own child. She and her ex (James Oliver Wheatley), also an expert animal hunter, battle for screentime as the movie drags itself towards the movie’s third act. By then, it’s only Wheatley’s character whose personal arc is resolved in any substantial way. His battling a mourning mama bear, a kind of parallel for the mother of his late son, is a strange choice when you really think about it.
Like the dull and draining family dramas that take over the movie, the music is nonstop and overwhelming. It’s as if Reiné thought every scene was of grave importance and required the accompaniment of an ultra-serious, over-the-top score. It doesn’t take long before all this severe music becomes monotonous, and you no longer know what moments matter more than others. They all want to be emotional and pivotal.
If Savage Hunt has anything going for it, it would be the use of a flesh-and-blood bear. “Filming with a real bear in real locations with real actors is a very complex task. The production involves a lot of stunts as well, and that adds to the complexity,” said producer Gabriel Georgiev. Those physical interactions between the actors and the animal, albeit jarringly edited ones, add an element sorely missing from creature horror movies coming out today. Now, is this enough to make up for everything else? Sadly, no, but that one effort is appreciated. This movie simply has no idea what it wants to be or do, despite the audience showing up for a killer bear story.
Savage Hunt is now available now on Digital and will be out on DVD in early 2026.
