Review of Open Season

This is one bizarre film!. I actually saw this movie in 1976 at a drive-in theater in Orlando - with my own mother! I was young, in the Navy and home on leave. Mom wanted a girl's night out so we went shopping and decided to go to the drive-in. It was Peter Fonda night so we got a double feature of Open Season and Easy Rider. Open Season was rather shocking for me to see with Mom. My mother was rather cool so it wasn't too bad. I had always loved Peter Fonda, but his role in Open Season was as a bad guy - a really psycho-pervert. I guess that is why this film has been hard to find mention of on the internet until the last couple of years. I don't know why because Peter Fonda did another rather wacko flick called 'Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry' which was even more bizarre. After this length of time, I would actually like to see Open Season again and compare it with my memories. The theme is very haunting – that of three Vietnam War Veterans who are best friends – in some sense of the word. They get together on an annual 'hunting trip', complete with a family style station wagon and traditional hunting attire! They seem harmless enough in the beginning – very middle class dedicated family men. As the movie progresses, we find out that they are not out for venison. It must be some kind of post-traumatic Vietnam type anguish. They crave the 'human hunt'! They find the perfect quarries in an older man with his younger mistress. Okay, so it was rather hard to feel sympathy for the couple the men chose for this year's hunt….the guy was cheating on his wife. However, the brutality inflicted on the victims was totally vicious. I ended up feeling slightly sorry for the two. The woman did what she thought she needed to do to survive – her boyfriend was a total wuss. I did have a lot of problem seeing Peter Fonda playing such a maniac – but he was very effective at the part – he made me hate him and want him to die a miserable death! The greatest conflict in this film comes from an earlier victim of their 'hunts' – they had raped a young woman years before and as a result she had a baby (no idea on which one was the father). The young woman ended up in a mental institution as a result of the torture they put her through. Her parents raised the son she bore. Her father finally figured out who had done this to his beloved child and was bound for revenge. He follows our fearsome threesome on this particular journey with his own kind of retaliation in mind. You have to see the film to appreciate the circle of life/revenge. This film shows credence to the old saying that 'What Goes Around – Comes Around'!