My take: It’s a quick watch and a classic tale, but if you already know the story (as I did) it is pretty boring by today’s standards.
The Most Dangerous Game is the 14th movie in Studies in Terror, a book I am attempting to follow to learn more about classic horror. Every so often one of these movies makes me think, “There isn’t anything terrifying about this. Why is this in here?!” This is how I feel about The Most Dangerous Game. I was forced to read the short story in high school and like Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies, the concept of this story is so engrained in my brain that I regularly reference it in conversation with friends.
Poster for the Most Dangerous Game
As a result, watching this movie was a bit of a chore for me. I was simply glad it was short, clocking in at only one hour and two minutes.
What’s it about? I don’t want to ruin it for you too much if you don’t already know the tale. Basically, some people get shipwrecked on an island. The island has a large estate owned by an obsessive hunter named Count Zaroff. After having killed dangerous animals all over the world, he had grown bored with hunting and lost his purpose in life. That is, until he discovered the pleasures of hunting the most dangerous game [insert maniacal laughter]. I will leave it at that.
If you don’t know the story, watch this movie. If you do know it, skip watching this. The only thing I was truly excited to see was his trophy room, and that had been heavily edited by censors down to nearly nothing. The only other point of interest was that some jungle scenes on the island were later used in King Kong.
Disagree with my take on this movie? Leave a comment.
If you want to watch it, I found it on youtube:
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