Director: Mickey Reece
Cast: Mary Buss, Ginger Gilmartin, Ben Hall
Screenplay: Mickey Reece, John Selvidge
82 mins. Not Rated.

Recently, I was able to virtually attend the Dark Star Festival, where I was treated to several new and upcoming releases. While I was not fortunate enough to catch all the films that played, I was able to see Climate of the Hunter, a low-budget horror film with a lot of style and a unique filmmaker behind the camera. Today, let’s take a look at this “vampire” film and see if it’s worth hunting down.

Climate of the Hunter is a small story, mainly concerned with two sisters, Elizabeth (Mary Buss, Lord Finn, Camp Cold Brook) and Alma (Ginger Gilmartin, Fingerprints, Hosea) as they meet up at a cabin to reunite with an old friend they’ve not seen for twenty years, Wesley (Ben Hall, Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer, Adventures of Rufus: The Fantastic Pet). As Elizabeth and Alma each try to gain the romantic interest of Wesley, Alma begins to suspect that he is a vampire.

There’s little new in terms of story for Climate of the Hunter (it almost feels like a mumblecore vampire film in the simplest terms), but the real impact of the film is in its director, Mickey Reece (Strike, Dear Mistress, and Cure His Heart, Arrows of Outrageous Fortune) and his uncanny ability to present a simple and easily accessible story within the confines of a gorgeously atmospheric dreamscape of a film. Reece has crafted a visually arresting world here that is unlike much of what I’ve seen before, even though the film’s cinematography evokes elements of 1970s horror cinema in its execution. There’s also bits of Napoleon Dynamite-like meal platters and bits of dialogue that seemingly misdirect viewers in the narrative. It’s almost like a hangout movie mixed with gothic horror to great appeal, but it never feels like it’s trying to be smarter than its audience. Though full of dreamlike, striking imagery, it isn’t attempting to go over your head, at least for the most part.

Where the film ultimately stumbles for me is in its climax and closing moments, for I was quite enthralled by most of the story up until that point. I felt like the narrative was driving us somewhere captivating and unusual for its finale, I ended up being quite let down by an easily guessable, underwhelming end that left a sour taste in my mouth, and not in any way that works. It’s an ending that we’ve seen before, and it never seems to work for me. It’s also an ending that leans away from the atmosphere that the whole film has been building to. It’s just all-around a disappointing way to complete a journey like this one. I won’t go as far as to say that it is a bad ending or that it ruined the film. It just lessened the impact of the movie drastically.

Climate of the Hunter works until it doesn’t. Thankfully, it works for the first 90%, and the swift run time allows for a less-than-stellar ending to not fully detract from the overall experience of the film. It also gets my recommendation. It’s a weird, wild, surreal, and memorable movie that makes a hell of a case for its crew. Mickey Reece is a director to keep an eye out for, and Climate of the Hunter is a strong outing, for the most part.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe