The Hunt, Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse’s horror spec, brings The Most Dangerous Game into the modern era of partisanship and divisiveness. Liberal elites hunt deplorables in a private estate. That’s it. That’s the tweet.
But the script brings a light and playful touch to its story. One prime example: the bait and switch of who is the protagonist.
Point of View in your Scene
While films don’t get as far into the heads of its characters as fiction, you still have Point of View to your narrative, usually on a scene-to-scene basis. What the audience knows and who the camera follows helps communicate this.
In the second sequence of The Hunt, as the human game arrives in the hunting reserve, the script uses both these aspects to control who the audience thinks is the main character. Not only that, but it actually tells us on the page, further reinforcing what the audience will be experiencing with the finished film.
We, like Daisy, are disoriented. We know someone kidnapped these characters. Drugged them. And now released them here in the woods. Our knowledge aligns with theirs, and specifically Daisy’s – we are fully in her point of view.
Again, the script makes explicit what the audience will be feeling:
We follow Daisy to a clearing, where we see a host of other kidnappees along with a crate. Inside they discover weapons and start arming themselves. Daisy, our protagonist, proves a bit more clever and finds a key as well, using it to remove their restraints. Survivors start discussing, planning —
And then the killing begins.
A sniper picks off parts of the herd, including —
And just like that we’ve lost our main character and moved into someone else’s point of view.
This baton passing continues throughout the sequence, convincing us that a new character is the real protagonist, right up until they get violently killed and we switch to the next person. The film does this for several reasons –
- Establishes playful tone
- Makes it clear that no one is safe
- Tells the audience that there will be twists and surprises
- Shows how it will be spinning genre tropes and expectations
All through the simple trick of shifting point of view around.
Applying to Your Own Writing
Now most scripts don’t need to switch the protagonist every three pages. The Hunt just makes for a great, extreme case of how to manipulate point of view and some of its uses.
But even if you are holding steady with one character, you should still be thinking about point of view. Does the camera and scene move with them, or do elements without them appear on screen? Does the audience know more, less, or the same as the protagonist?
By considering these elements, you better control how the story gets told and what the audience experiences.