Today we get our first look at The Hunter via an intriguing teaser trailer. The film is a thriller starring Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill that is set to screen at the upcoming TIFF. Daniel Nettheim directed the pic which is about a man hunting the last Tasmanian tiger. It is based on a novel by Julia Leigh.
Leigh’s name may sound familiar, as she directed the bizarre, erotic Sleeping Beauty indie pic that made such a splash at Cannes earlier this year. That she writes and directs is intriguing enough but the the story behind The Hunter doesn’t sound terribly enticing. It follows a mysterious stranger who goes on a quest to find the perhaps extinct Tasmanian tiger.
The trailer does look intriguing though, despite the story itself and a cast that includes names that, while they may be great actors, aren’t a huge draw for me. Besides Neill and Dafoe, The Hunter co-stars Frances O’Connor. Check out the synopsis and teaser trailer below and judge for yourself is this is going to be worth a watch.
The Hunter describes the deadly search for the fabled, and perhaps extinct, Tasmanian tiger, aka the thylacine. A mysterious man who is identified to the reader only as M assumes the identity of “Martin David, naturalist” and arrives at the filthy, disheveled house of depressed Lucy Armstrong, whose husband, Jarrah, a naturalist and bioethics expert, recently disappeared on the plateau. Lucy’s home becomes the base for M’s treks into the wilderness, ostensibly to study the habits of Tasmanian devils.