Summary

• The Hunt's ending is politically charged and open-ended, leaving room for a potential sequel.
• Manorgate started as a harmless joke but transformed into a dangerous conspiracy, highlighting the impact of digital misinformation.
• Crystal's true identity and Don's allegiance are left ambiguous, emphasizing the dangers of jumping to conclusions without concrete evidence.

Warning! Major spoilers for The Hunt below.

The Hunt is full of plot twists, but there's a lot of speculation about the movie's ending and the concept of "Manorgate." The Hunt proved to be an incredibly controversial movie. Following the film's release in early 2020, after it was canceled in 2019, audiences were able to see why The Hunt was so controversial, even down to its twist ending. A satirical thriller that explores the dangerous consequences of misinformation and assumptions in the digital age, The Hunt depicts a sinister scenario where a group of elites hunt individuals they label as "deplorables," based on a spiraling conspiracy theory.

Much to the hunters' surprise, Crystal (Betty Gilpin), the main character in The Hunt, fights back and ends up picking off the hunters one by one. She makes it back to the hunters' leader, Athena (Hilary Swank), and the two women have one final showdown. The Hunt's ending is both politically charged and a little open-ended, and those associated have already discussed ideas for a potential sequel, as there are some great directions to go in after The Hunt's ending.

The Hunt's Origin Explained

The Hunt kicks things off with a bit of sleight of hand. The film opens with a shot of a group text thread with participants joking about hunting other people. The audience is meant to assume this is business as usual amongst a group of people who seem to be planning a twisted hunt. But at the end of the movie, it's revealed that the text chain happened a year prior to the events of The Hunt. Athena and her friends all have high-ranking, corporate positions. The text chain gets leaked and nicknamed Manorgate, which leads to her and all her friends getting terminated from their jobs.

Disgruntled, the group decides to make their joke a reality. Athena and her friends track down the people who posted about their alleged hunt online. They train for months, hire a military consultant, and manage to kidnap the people responsible for exposing their text chain. They drop their prospective victims in the middle of nowhere, and the hunt is on. In the minds of the hunters, this is justified. By spreading rumors about Athena and her friends, they inadvertently pushed the hunt into reality. These people were conspiracy theorists who took their theories too far, so the hunters decided to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Manorgate Meaning Explained

Manorgate was initially framed as a real-life embodiment of an extreme right-wing conspiracy theory. The Hunt introduces viewers to a world where affluent elites hunt people they label as "deplorables," a narrative that resonates with familiar conspiracy tropes. This setting creates the expectation of a conventional thriller, where a powerful group's heinous act of hunting the vulnerable is accepted as the film's reality. The narrative cleverly blurs the lines between fiction and reality, demonstrating how outlandish conspiracy theories might play out in a world unbound by the constraints of rationality and truth. As the story unfolds, The Hunt reveals the deeper, more satirical layers of the Manorgate narrative.

Originally a joke meant to be harmless, Manorgate becomes a widely believed conspiracy, fueled by individuals with ulterior motives. This transition from a simple joke to a serious conspiracy reflects the film's critique of the perilous nature of misinformation in today's digital age. The Hunt showcases the ease with which false narratives can spread online, often leading to real-world harm. It emphasizes the issue of misinformation, shedding light on the broader problem of how quickly unverified information can circulate and cause chaos. In essence, Manorgate is the vessel for The Hunt's stark, satirical commentary on the impact of digital misinformation, warning of the dangers of hastily spreading unverified stories.

Was Betty Gilpin The Real Crystal May?

During Athena and Crystal's final confrontation, a surprising fact is revealed — the hunters got the wrong Crystal. Athena says she was going after a Crystal who used the name Justice4Yall on an online forum. Crystal informs her that there's a different person in her hometown with the same name — she's Crystal Mae and Gilpin is Crystal May. Gilpin's Crystal says their mail gets mixed up constantly. Crystal and Athena have The Hunt's violent final showdown, and Athena ultimately dies from her wounds. Athena asks Crystal if she really is Justice4Yall. Once again, Crystal denies it, but Athena doesn't believe her.

Ultimately, Crystal's identity is left up in the air. Given the underlying message of the film, it can be assumed that Crystal was telling the truth, and she was not Justice4Yall. The Hunt is about the dangers of social media and being too connected. Every member of the hunted posted about Manorgate without much concrete proof beyond the text chain and evidence that Athena owned a home in a remote location. Athena's group wanted to teach these people a lesson about what happens when you don't verify facts. So, it's an appropriate and cruel twist of irony that the hunters got the wrong Crystal.

In an interview with The Guardian, Director Craig Zobel stated that he never intended to cause controversy with The Hunt.

Was Don Really A Mole?

During The Hunt, Crystal runs into a man named Don who claims he is also being hunted. They team up and together make their way into the hunters' camp. Just when Crystal is ready to bring Don with her to take on Athena, a startling message comes over the radio — Athena exposes Don as one of the hunters, supposedly infiltrating the hunted as a mole. Naturally, Crystal shoots him on the spot.

When Crystal and Athena are fighting to the death, Athena cruelly reveals that Don was never part of her group. It was all a ruse to trick Crystal. This element of The Hunt is left to be more open-ended than Crystal's true identity, but it's probably safe to say Athena was actually telling the truth in this case. The Hunt is all about the dangers of believing a statement before getting any real, concrete evidence. Crystal didn't even allow Don to state his case. Athena told her Don was a mole, and Crystal immediately decided to kill him.

Snowball: What The Hunt's Animal Farm Reference Means

Athena calls Crystal their "Snowball." Crystal questioned why Athena would call her that, and the lead hunter explained that it was a reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm. Simply put, she was calling Crystal a pig. However, Crystal shocks Athena by informing her that, not only has she read Animal Farm, but she believes Athena is more similar to Snowball. In the book, Snowball is a capable leader but believes pigs are far superior to any other animal. He believes in a cause so fervently that it drives him mad, which reflects the film's messages about belief systems and being able to analyze situations from different points of view.

What Is The Hunt's Political Message?

Despite the movie's controversy, The Hunt isn't about pitting the left side of the political spectrum against the right. Instead, it's about what happens when people take "political correctness" culture too far. With PC culture, people's words and motivations are overly scrutinized. Thanks to social media, interpretations and theories behind those words and motivations can spread like wildfire. Of course, this often pits the left and right against each other, and sometimes situations can go to the extreme, just as is portrayed in The Hunt. In many ways, the film predicted the outrage surrounding its pre-release in an ironic twist.

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  The Hunt

  Summary:

  Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen… for a very specific purpose … The Hunt. Universal Pictures acquired the right to the film in March 2018. Filming got underway in February 2019, about a month before most of the cast were announced.

  Release Date:

  2020-03-13

  Budget:

  $15 million

  Cast:

  Hilary Swank, Ike Barinholtz, Emma Roberts, Amy Madigan, Betty Gilpin, Justin Hartley, Glenn Howerton

  Director:

  Craig Zobel

  Genres:

  Horror, Action

  Rating:

  R

  Writers:

  Nick Cuse, Damon Lindelof

  Runtime:

  90minutes

  Studio(s):

  Universal Pictures

  Distributor(s):

  Universal Pictures