Hunter Hunter Star Nick Stahl Embraced the Mystery With His New Thriller

No matter what type of horror subgenre a film might fall under, their threats always fall into one of two categories: the danger you can see and the danger you can’t see, with Hunter Hunter offering audiences a little bit of both. While a family lives in the woods and lives off the land, they merely see the aftermath of a seemingly dangerous threat, leaving them to wonder exactly how such carnage could be caused, though when the mysterious stranger Lou, played by Nick Stahl, arrives at their door, they don’t know if they have a better chance of surviving against a threat they can recognize or one they can’t identify.

Hunter Hunter follows a family living in the remote wilderness earning a living as fur trappers. Joseph Mersault (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan), and their daughter Renée (Summer H. Howell) struggle to make ends meet and think their traps are being hunted by the return of a rogue wolf. Determined to catch the predator in the act, Joseph leaves his family behind to track the wolf. Anne and Renée grow increasingly anxious during Joseph’s prolonged absence and struggle to survive without him. When they hear a strange noise outside their cabin, Anne hopes it is Joseph but instead finds a man named Lou (Stahl), who has been severely injured and left for dead. The longer Lou stays and Joseph is away, the more paranoid Anne becomes, and the idea of a mysterious predator in the woods slowly becomes a threat much closer to home.

ComicBook.com recently caught up with Stahl to talk about acting in a harsh environment, developing a character’s unseen backstory, and other franchises he’s been a part of.

ComicBook.com: This film pits all of its characters against the elements and was filmed in the frigid forests of Winnipeg, are you personally much of an outdoorsman or was it tough to cope with the elements?

Nick Stahl: No, I really [am not] now, and I was a suburban kid, just riding bikes out on the street and stuff like that, which is actually kind of a thing of the past these days. But as far as going out [into the woods], like, I don’t know anything. Any kind of wilderness or anything remotely like that, there wasn’t much of that as a kid. A couple of camping trips, that’s the extent of my wilderness experience.

Audiences see Devon’s character in the film showing off his more primitive skills necessary to be his family’s provider, whereas you show up much further along in the story and we don’t see much of your survival skills. Did you do much prep to get into that survivalist mindset prior to shooting?

I did not, it wasn’t for me. Like you said, Devon, his character seemed to be more at home in that environment. And my guy was an outsider in more ways than one, I guess. So I never really saw him as somebody who lives out there. I saw him as sort of this dark visitor, so I didn’t do much of that. I saw the film and then it seemed like Devin did [prep work] ’cause he looked like he was well-versed in all of that.

Despite not doing much prep, once you were actually shooting in Winnipeg, was it easy to get into the mindset of your character?

Yeah, I think so. It was a typical location for the story. It was winter, it was as cold as it looked and I think it lends itself very well to the story. And so that helps when you’re filming, you don’t have to imagine you’re in it and it adds to the reality of what you’re doing.

There’s a lot about your character’s backstory that’s left unexplored, leaving audiences to fill in the gaps of your history. Did you spend much time developing your own character’s backstory or did you limit yourself to only considering what was explicitly covered in the script?

[Writer/director] Shawn [Linden] and I talked before filming and he helped me a lot just in thoughts that he had about the character and where he’s coming from. I think he did it well because he didn’t say too much, I think he let me figure things out for myself, but Shawn, interestingly enough, he had, kind of oddly, extensive knowledge on serial killers. I think his father was involved in like criminal psychology and like forensic stuff when he was a kid. And so he grew up knowing about the psychology of famous serial killers and stuff. And so it was cool because I had never really gone in-depth with things like that, other than watching, true crime, reality television or something.

A lot of it was just on the page. There were certain things that were written with the guy who had an old-school Walkman and like weird music he was listening to and things that were fun to play with and it had some ideas for maybe where he was coming from, but I think all that stuff is helpful.

I got a little nervous when you said Shawn had extensive knowledge of serial killers and then said, “I think his father…” because I thought you might follow with “…was a serial killer himself,” so I’m relieved.

I don’t believe so. I mean, I don’t know if [Shawn] was keeping that from [us]. Maybe it’s very mysterious, a little fishy.

I get desensitized to horror films and can often see the path that a movie is going to take, but the final scene really took me by surprise. What was your reaction to first reading that final scene?

It was shocking, for sure and, at the same time, it made total sense. I thought it was really clever and, when you see it, it’s an ending and it causes you to look back at the previous hour and a half, and then it makes sense. You piece it together. You’re like, “Well, that ending fits perfectly.” I kind of wondered if it was too gruesome or hardcore for a mass audience, but apparently not. So I was happy to see it get distributed. I loved the ending. I think it’s great. It’s great horror.

I don’t want to get too far into any spoiler territory, but the special effects and makeup looked pretty intense in the finale, so were there doubles or prosthetics or animatronics to pull off those scenes?

There was a lot of prosthetic stuff and I’ve done a lot of that in my career, for some reason, I don’t know why. That was actually, selfishly, one of the first things that got brought up when I read the script. I was like, “I’m going to be in a makeup chair for a long time.” And there was one double that was used and kinda got the worst of it. I just knew it was part of the gig going into it. I think they did an awesome job making look realistic, too.

You previously starred in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and with that franchise exploring various timelines and bringing back surprising characters, were there ever any talks of your John Connor coming back for any of the sequels?

No. Short answer. I haven’t heard anything about a new Terminator movie. I don’t know, man. I did the one film and I was there, so, yeah. Wish I had a more exciting answer for you, but that’s it.

No, that’s totally fair. Do you see it as a movie you did and you’re happy to move on or if they called you up and said they needed you, would you be on board?

Oh, absolutely. I would jump at the opportunity. I love those movies, I grew up watching Terminator movies and was just thrilled to be a part of that role in that franchise. So, yeah, that would be something I would love to do.

Another fan-favorite project of yours was HBO’s Carnivàle, which ended unexpectedly. Since HBO brought back projects like Deadwood for a new movie, has there been any recent talk of a Carnivàle revival?

Man, it’s so interesting because I keep getting asked about that and I haven’t heard anything from HBO people about it. That show had a very loyal, very rabid fan base. That’d be interesting. I’m wondering where all the talk of that is coming from, actually, but it keeps getting mentioned. So we’ll see what happens, I guess. You never know.

Well, I’ll make a few calls and get the HBO people on the line to make that happen.

Yeah, that would be very helpful. Yeah, I would love that.

*****

Hunter Hunter lands in select theaters, on Digital HD, and On Demand on December 18th.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.