The Most Dangerous Game gets a slightly sleazy big-city re-write in this 1968 exploitation thriller directed by "Eve" (aka Herb Stanley).
Virginia (Eileen Lord) is a high-strung, borderline psychotic socialite from a wealthy Manhattan family. Virginia was planning on joining her equally crazed brother for a hunting trip abroad, but when Virginia is forbidden to attend, she decides to set up some interesting big game hunting of her own. Virginia persuades three down-and-out men — failing actor Freeman, pathetic drug addict Buddy, and down-on-his-luck wrestler Rocco (Jake LaMotta) — to accept an unusual offer. Virginia will hunt them like animals for 24 hours on the streets of New York City, and if they survive, they each get 100,000 dollars. All three men agree and lay low in order to avoid running into Virginia or her henchmen, but Virginia is able to lure them into the open, and they all find themselves running for their lives.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: Virginia assigns animals to each of her 'prey', according to traits she sees within them: Freeman is a lion, Rocco is a bull, and Buddy is a jackal. This then influences the ways in which she kills them.
- Battle Butler: Virginia's butler Bye aids her in Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, including stabbing Rocco in the back with a pair of picador's swords before shoving him out onto the rooftop garden to face Virginia.
- Bullfight Boss: After being goaded and wounded, Rocco loses all of his fighting finesse and blindly charges like a bull at Virginia, who is fittingly dressed as a matador. She dances around him like a matador playing with a bull before finishing him off with an espada de matar toros ('sword for killing bulls').
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Rocco's girl is delivering him a lecture about how much she enjoys sex when she stops and starts kissing her reflection in the mirror.
- Egomaniac Hunter: Virginia who, on being denied permission to leave the country to go on big game safari in Africa, instead decides to start Hunting the Most Dangerous Game. From the little we see and hear, her brother Anderson seems nearly as bad, but at least restricts his hunting to actual animals.
- Freudian Excuse: Virginia's psychosis stems from her father not loving her, and her brother throwing her pet puppy to its death off the balcony of their penthouse. In her final breakdown, she falls to the floor desperately begging her (dead) father for his love.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: At the swingers party, one of the men is staring very intently at two mostly naked women making out on a bed.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Virginia—a deranged, wealthy woman—offers $100,000 to three men if they can stay alive for 24 hours in Manhattan, and then hunts them down.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Virginia kills Buddy by shooting a crossbow bolt through his throat.
- Manslaughter Provocation: Freeman killed the man who was having an affair with his wife: grabbing his cutthroat razor off him and slashing him to death.
- Never Bring A Knife To A Gunfight: Virginia goads Rocco to come out of hiding and face her by insulting his manhood. He turns up at her penthouse planning to kill her with his bare hands, but is immediately outclassed when she attacks him with a sword.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Virginia is able to goad Rocco out of hiding to come and fight her by calling him a coward and insulting his manhood.
- No Medication for Me: Max has prescribed anti-psychotic medication for Virginia. However, her evasive answers to him indicate that she no longer taking it, which goes a long way to explaining her psychotic break.
- A Party, Also Known as an Orgy: The swingers party where Buddy hides out has people having sex in the living room while the party goes on around.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Virginia selects the three men to be her prey because they have all killed and been acquitted.
- Shower Scene: In the flashback, Freeman's wife is taking a shower when Freeman arrives home unexpectedly and murders her lover.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Virginia is seeing a psychiatrist named Max who seems genuinely concerned for her welfare and is doing his best to help her. However, both Virginia and her guardian Anderson deliberately ignore him.
- The Voiceless: Virginia's Battle Butler Bye never speaks over the course of the movie. He must be able to speak, as Virginia instructs him to answer the phone at one point, which would be a pointless command if he was mute.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Max and Anderson? They were last seen being locked in the freezer by Virginia. Did someone find them? Or did they die?
- Wrestler in All of Us: The wrestler Rocco turns up at Virginia's penthouse and attempts to take her down using wrestling. Which proves to be a bad idea when she is armed with a sword.
