Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Hunter Hunter’s Shawn Linden

Director-writer Shawn Linden is a filmmaker on the rise. His award-winning features have been seen at festivals around the world.

His latest, Hunter Hunter, is a survival horror-thriller that stars Devon Sawa, Camille Sullivan, Nick Stahl, and Summer H. Howell. Set in the remote wilderness, Hunter Hunter follows a family of fur trappers whose livelihood is threatened when a rogue wolf appears.

Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with Shawn about Hunter Hunter.

PC: Tell us about Hunter Hunter and the inspiration behind the film.
Shawn: Hunter Hunter is about a family of fur trappers who are living out in the remote wilderness, far away from any civilized contact. They make their living as trappers. There’s a wolf that appears to be stealing from their traps and threatening their livelihoods. The hunter goes out to trap the wolf, and he ends up finding more than he bargained for.

There were quite a few inspirations for the film, including ambivalence towards eating meat. I really love eating meat, and I really love animals. I’m not able to reconcile those two facts. That was one of the inspirations for the film. What happens if you’re an animal and you can’t help but kill, as any predator does?

It was also influenced by the old Grimm fairy tales. It’s always been a fairy tale about predators for me. It’s always had that fairy tale–ish dark quality. Werewolf movies were an inspiration, even though it’s not a werewolf movie. There were a bunch of different things here and there.

PC: You wrote, produced, and directed the film. At what point in the process did you realize you wanted to wear all those different hats? How challenging was that?
Shawn: The script is thirteen years old. It was written originally in 2007. It has always been written for me to direct. It was always meant to be at a budget that would be obtainable by me, a low-budget filmmaker. I usually produce films that I write and direct. I’ve had the great fortune of working with two great producers—Neil Elman and Juliette Hagopian—who had taken the wheel essentially in that respect. I’m not usually juggling two different jobs at the same time.

When I’m a writer, I’m not directing or producing. I’m just making the script. When the script is done and it’s time to direct, I can put away any producer duties that I have. I have some very talented people who are leading that charge. I was able to focus exclusively on directing. Then in post-production, directing and writing aren’t needed. I’m able to pick up more responsibilities as the producer. My team was very careful to make sure that I wasn’t dealing with two different jobs at once.

PC: You’ve directed two other feature films. How have those experiences prepared you for Hunter Hunter?
Shawn: Every movie is transformative in every way. You learn an immense amount. It’s inevitable that you have regrets and things you wish you could do differently, but each one is a step up. Hunter Hunter was done consciously to avoid the mistakes that I saw that I had made previously in other films. Every time I hope I get better at it.

PC: With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away?
Shawn: It’s a disturbing movie if it’s doing its job. I hope that people are genuinely disturbed. I really like horror films. It’s a payoff when I’m horrified. I hope I achieve the same effect on other people.

Hunter Hunter is available in select theaters, digital and On Demand.