To think: I long believed that TEMPTATION ISLAND, a 1980 Filipino wonder about beauty pageant contestants resorting to cannibalism on a desert island, was the dumbest babes in jeopardy movie in existence. Turns out I was wrong, as HUNTING HOUSEWIVES, about housefrows hunted MOST DANGEROUS GAME style through the Canadian wilderness, offers the former film a serious run for its money in sheer stupidity. It’s a Lifetime network movie that’s very much in keeping with the Lifetime aesthetic, as summed up by critic Scott Larson: “Lifetime movies always seem to be about victims. Sometimes these victims are children, but usually they are women,” each of whom is abused “by the rotten psychopath she has married.”
The victims in this case are four uber rich middle-aged housewives (pattered, evidently, on the “real housewives” featured in the various Bravo series bearing that title) who commandeer a private jet for a spa weekend with “No kids, no husbands, no schedule, and lots of drinks!” But the jet crashes in an untamed forest (British Columbia’s Maple Ridge, to be exact), with Rebel (Nene Leakes) perishing and Karla (Denise Richards), Joli (Kym Johnson Herjavec) and Sharrell (Melyssa Ford) left to brave the wilderness on their own.
Luckily, the “challenges” they encounter, which include a nearly self-starting fire, a bear that immediately runs away and food rations that are “basically Paleo” (as in the Paleo diet), aren’t exactly life-threatening. Nor do the gals seem all that put out by the death of their friend Rebel, giving her a perfunctory aboveground “burial.” Things only truly get hairy when an unseen someone begins shooting arrows at them.
Interspaced with the ladies’ misadventures are flashbacks to their earlier lives and cutaways to the current doings of their husbands. Mark (Mark Ghanimé), Karla’s evil tech bro hubbie, has gathered the guys in his secluded country house, where he reveals that he organized the spa get-away, the plane crash and the hunting expedition. Furthermore, he’s set up cameras around the crash site so he and the others can view their wives’ exploits in real time. But Sherrell’s husband Andre (Martin Roach) and Jolie’s hubbie Jared (Sergio Di Zio) are plotting a rebellion against Mark, who’s been forced to lock Rebel’s hysterical hubbie Evan (Kip Brown) in the panic room.
Will the housewives succeed in making their way out of the wilderness? Will Andre, Jared and Evan succeed in standing up to Mark? Do we care? I’ll reveal that by the pic’s end I most certainly didn’t.
The filmmaking is exactly what you’d expect: nothing to write home about, with cheap (and not at all forbidding) TV movie production values and a deliberately campy air. Nor is plausibility something you can reasonably expect, with the pic bearing all the hard-hitting realism of an episode of MR. ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD.
The acting follows suit, although the fiftyish Denise Richards is a striking sight. She has a world-weary air and raspy voice that make for a fascinating contrast with her sweet and sexy 1990s self, on display in films like STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997) and WILD THINGS (1998), both of which I’d recommend watching in place of HUNTING HOUSEWIVES.
Vital Statistics
HUNTING HOUSEWIVES
Lifetime
Director: Marco Duefemia
Producer: Jessica Reis
Screenplay: Paula Tiberius
Cinematography: Aldo Quirvan
Editing: Elizabeth Stadtlander, Mike Donis
Cast: Denise Richards, Mark Ghanimé, Kym Johnson Herjavec, Melyssa Ford, Martin Roach, Sergio Di Zio, Kip brown, Nene Leakes