The Wild Hunt offers a little bit of everything, what starts as a broad joke on the nerdiness of fantasy gamers slowly turns into something much darker, then culminates in an ending so brutal you’d think the wood chipper in Fargo understated by comparison.  It’s these disparate elements that make the film so enjoyable from start to finish.  Just as the joke on gamers could wear thin, the touching romance blossoms.  Just when we consider the gamers harmless dweebs, the sinister happenings so effectively forshadowed come to gruesome fruition.

If a big budget production set out to capture the appeal of the role playing universe they might get a few things right.  They could ring a few laughs out of discerning D and D’ers, but it takes real geeks to make a film geeks love and Mark Krupa and Alexandre Franchi have done just that with The Wild Hunt.

But they’re the first to admit they couldn’t have done it without Duché de Bicolline, an idyllic area near Shawinigan, Quebec reserved for “role-play to scale”.  Thousands of people engage in a full-scale battle here each year.  And The Wild Hunt maximized its miniscule budget by using the real-life fantasy buffs as extras.  The actors also picked their brains.  But that didn’t mean they had carte blanche to infringe on the fantasy. When lead Ricky Mabe was shooting scenes wearing city clothes he was asked to wear a robe so as not to spoil it for the hardcores who want to be totally immersed in their medieval fantasy world.

As a tribute to the real life gamers of Bicolline we name-check our five fave real-life (well sort of real anyways) guilds:  HOLY ORDER OF THE IRON FIST; WARRIORS OF THE MOUNTAIN; THE SON OF POLIGNAC; EMMISSARIES NAKKAN OSSAN and last but not least, perhaps by prophecy of divine oracle, XAOR.