REVIEW BY A LARPER - FOR NON-LARPERS, WITH SPOILERS

This review and commentary of the movie The Wild Hunt contains many plot spoilers, including the ending. For commentary without, go here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1493886/board/thread/162946124

The spoilers will be under the ******** notation.

The Wild Hunt, a dramatic thriller directed by Alexandre Franchi and written, starring and executive produced by Mark Krupa, is a low-budget (less than a million) independent Canadian feature film that is enjoying an award-winning run on the festival circuit as well as a limited theatrical release in its home country. It might have a limited release in the United States starting May 28—Hannover House, the distributor, may push that release back to coincide with San Diego Comic Con or GenCon.

I saw a screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 24, 2010.

The plot is a simple one: Erik (Ricky Mabe) is caregiver for his ailing father. Erik’s brother, Bjorn (Mark Krupa) enjoys freedom via play-pretending that he is a Viking warrior for a live action role playing game, or larp. The game he plays takes place in a homemade medieval village, similar to a Renaissance Faire, where everyone dresses up in costume and pretends to be someone else. Erik’s girlfriend, Evelyn (Kaniehtiio Horn), joins Bjorn on this weekend adventure, and, during the course of the game, is play-captured by the Shaman Murtagh (Trevor Hayes). Erik, troubled about his real-life relationship with Evelyn, attends the larp to rescue her—first in reality, than in fantasy, then, as events degrade, those lines blur and cross.

The Wild Hunt was shot at and with the permission of a larp group, Duche de Bicolline, in Canada. Many of their participants and sets appear in the movie.

The acting, cinematography, editing, wardrobe and production design of the movie are all very striking and professional. There’s no question that everyone involved has talent. If you are looking for a taut drama with Shakespearean epic overtones, this fits the bill.

I want to address the portrayal of live action role-playing in The Wild Hunt. If you’ve heard of larp before, but are unsure exactly of what it is or what people do at a larp event, let me stress a few points:

1. Not all larp events take place over a weekend, nor are they of fantasy genre, nor do they use foam weapons, like in the movie. That is the majority of larps in America, yes, but, like superheroes in comic books, clearly not all of them. Live action role-playing can be used for education (i.e., model U.N. clubs), business (mock trials for lawyers), research (the Stanford Prison Experiment), and training (disaster preparedness). If you see this movie, be aware that the weekend version of Lord of the Rings with boffers is a large part, but not all parts, of larp.

2. For the events of the movie to transpire in an actual larp, there would have to be multiple catastrophic failures on the part of many people. In the 25 years that I have been running, researching, and participating in live action role-playing, I have not heard of nor experienced situations as intense as the ones depicted in The Wild Hunt. The movie is a work of fiction, and the filmmakers adroitly push the envelope very far indeed. You can safely assume that, like many movies, reality was stretched for dramatic purposes. This is not a documentary about larp. It is not an accurate representation of a larp, despite its use of Bicolline. It is, however, an emotionally fierce picture. Were there moments of familiar truth in TWH? Absolutely. But overall, the movie relied upon a series of exceptions to the rule. Not impossible things, but very highly unlikely.

(spoiler alert)
***********
The following are a listing of incidents in the movie that would have raised a red flag and likely stopped the event had they occurred in an actual larp.




Weapons
There is a scene where one of the Gamemasters, or referees, checks the safety of the weapons being used. He asks the players to cover up a boffer (foam weapon) that has an exposed bit of PVC pipe. This safety check is standard operating procedure of live combat (boffer) larps, and happens before the game begins, and as players enter the larp. GMs are not only looking for danger elements, or weapons that are heavier than what is allowed, they are also looking for real metal and realistic weaponry. The retractable blade that Murtagh’s group use to “sacrifice” Evelyn likely wouldn’t be allowed into the game, or, it would be marked in such a way that anyone seeing it, say, a park ranger or law enforcement officer or a person about to be stabbed with it, would know that it was not a real weapon.

Furthermore, the introduction of Mjolnir, an actual sledgehammer being used as Thor’s hammer, would very likely be prohibited by the GM. In the movie, the female GM, Tamara, playing a character supporting Erik and Bjorn, kneels and swears a Viking oath on it. It’s a drastic failure for a GM to allow a real weapon into the game as a magical weapon, especially if the players are carrying it.

The LARP Alliance, a non-profit (501c) organization, is working to establish a ratings system called the American Weapon Index that reviews and rates the many different types of fake weaponry used in larps. Actual sledgehammers would be banned, and players attempting to bring or use it in a game would also be removed.

GameMaster control and presence
By my reckoning, there were only two GMs running the entire larp, far too few to handle that many participants, especially over a large area. If a larp grows as big as the one seen in the movie, with two story buildings and replica ships, there would be a much larger contingent of referees stationed in the key areas or with the primary groups of the game. That’s simply logistics; many players have questions and problems that need solving. The GMs handle not only real life crises like getting lost, poison oak, or outhouses without toilet paper, but also the in-game crises: major spells or rituals being cast, clans forging alliances or making sacrifices to their gods. In the movie, the ritual of rebirth with Evelyn would likely have to be witnessed by a ref to make sure they performed the ceremony “correctly.” It’s highly unusual to have a major event like the start of the Wild Hunt to occur without a GM observing…especially because GMs like to see cool scenes in their larps. And with a GM there, they would break character and halt the proceedings if Evelyn was being mistreated or threatened.

It was accurate to see the GMs with walkie-talkies communicating with each other, but few larps could operate with a ratio of two GMs per 100 attendees, especially in a larp using physical combat.

The GMs in the movie were also negligent in not applying brakes to the larp. It is up to the GM to know when something or someone has gone too far. It’s usually not too much trouble to call a person out of the larp to talk to someone from the outside. Erik came to see Evelyn, but wasn’t allowed to enter the village and talk to her as mundane. What if it was Evelyn’s relative, or a police officer? Why was Erik forced to become a character? Or, if modern folks aren’t allowed inside, there should be a system in place for a referee to contact the player in case of emergency. But the GMs ignored politeness and courtesy, obsessed with historical or fantastical accuracy.

Game Rules and Calls
Most larps have a set of “calls” that are used to break the fantasy. They’re used for safety purposes. One of the most common calls is the world “Hold!” which, if anyone says it aloud, all within hearing must stop what they are doing and sit in place. It’s used in case of injury or emergency, or for major plot events from the GM staff.

None of the characters in the movie ever uttered a “hold” call, especially Evelyn. Granted, it may not have made a difference with some of Murtagh’s clan, but an attempt should have, would have been made.

In game or out of game?
One of the biggest differences in The Wild Hunt from most larps is the blurring of fantasy and reality. This was something that all characters did, most grievously by the referees.

An early example of the confusion between playing in game or not is when Erik comes to meet with Evelyn at the larp for the first time. He’s taken to Murtagh’s clan by a GM. When he sees Evelyn, he’s attacked and killed (in game) by a boffer. Yet he doesn’t drop. He screams he’s not playing, and tries to talk to Evelyn. So is the dead talking? He’s clearly not in the game at that point. Yet he’s not allowed to talk to his girlfriend. Why not? Why didn’t anyone, like a GM, allow him a few minutes alone with her? Although real life relationship drama can and does interfere with larps, most veteran players (and GMs) know when reality is intruding and will step out of character to handle the situation.

The biggest mix up between fantasy and realty is during the scene in the ship with Evelyn, Erik, Murtagh, and a referee (the head ref, apparently). The GM asks Erik to leave, because of Murtagh’s spell. Erik refuses. The GM allows him to stay. Murtagh talks to Evelyn out of character, trying to get her to continue playing in the larp. Erik also talks back as a person, not as a character. So they are all breaking character. The GM, at that point, should have realized that something was going off the rails, and called a stop to the proceedings. But instead, the GM does nothing. Murtagh then quits playing by the rules, but continues the in-game Wild Hunt ritual. Was he an actual Celtic druid? Did the ceremony have more than symbolic meaning to him, or the other men in his clan? It seems unusual that an entire clan would agree to assault and attempted rape, and no one, especially the GMs, notice nor attempts to stop it by say, calling the police.

It continues?
By the end of the movie, the camp nearly burned down (the use of fire was surprising, but maybe that’s a Southern California bias), players rioted and killed/hospitalized each other. Yet the final scene indicates that the larp continued to operate—and Bjorn was still playing. I cannot imagine this enterprise didn’t suffer a series of lawsuits or at least an extremely bad reputation that would cause it to close its gates.

The freedom of larps is there because there are rules that bind the players and enforce the borders between what’s real life and what takes place in the imagination. The disregard for long-standing larp rules and systems makes for great drama, but again, it’s not a realistic larp.

Reaction
The Wild Hunt has won the Audience Award at Slamdance for Best Film (2009) as well as Best Canadian First Feature from the Toronto International Film Festival (among other accolades). The reviews have been mostly positive, although a few have contained disparaging slights against Live Action Role Playing. The critics seem to know that this is a fiction film, however, it does cement the perception that all larps are fantasy live combat style.

After the Newport Beach screening I attended, I overheard two comments from two different couples sitting near me (total strangers). First was: “I am never, ever larping, ever.” Second was “I’m not going to Renaissance Faire anymore.” I am not sure how serious they were, nor if that was a typical reaction (anecdote is not data). When I asked a few other people afterwards on their thoughts, one girl said she wasn’t interested in larping before, and still wasn’t. Here male companion was excited, though, but said he already was interested in larping after seeing the movie Role Models.

In an interview with Mark Krupa, the writer/executive producer and actor (Bjorn) in The Wild Hunt, I mentioned these two quotes to him, and asked what he would say to these people given the chance. He replied:

If they were serious, I would say "That's unfortunate; if you weren't so careful you may end up having fun." Or to the guy I'd say "You should see the girls there in chainmail bustiers." Or to the girl I'd say "You know the medieval thing really helps guys role-play. Like take that extra time to attend to your needs, you know?" But I'd probably really say “Yeah - Medieval fairs! God who needs that!? A bunch of CRAZY LARPERS in COSTUME!? I'd much rather drink liver-poison in a dark bar with loud music or go to a club where real girls twirl around poles. It's a much more human experience."

See more of my interview with Mark in a future post here on this board.

Some American larpers may be reticent to see or support The Wild Hunt. In my opinion, their hesitation may be an overreaction, but it is a legitimate reaction. The movie seems to suggest a systemic problem with larps, that these events are just waiting to happen. Part of that is the skill of the filmmakers. But as a larper, my reaction is that too many things would have to fail for the events in the movie to occur. It’s statistically highly improbable, bordering impossible. But does it make for gripping entertainment? Yes.

Conclusion
Most of us can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, especially in our larps and in our movies. We know “it’s just a movie” or “it’s just a game.” And yes, most larpers know the difference as well. Which is why the plot of The Wild Hunt, although highly dramatic, isn’t quite so realistic. But isn’t that the point of escapism?

Krupa says:
At their core, I believe, people need ritual to connect with themselves and others. It has been rooted in the psyche for generations. In our Urban Jungle, it is increasingly easy to tune-out and disconnect. Or to connect with a machine—a virtual human—not the real world. LARP helps remedy these feeling in my opinion.

Enjoy The Wild Hunt, but if you’re concerned that the dramatic events of the movie are what goes on at larps, rest assured, they’re not.

For more information on Live Action Role Playing, check out LARP Alliance (http://www.larpalliance.net/).

Aaron Vanek
Secretary of LARP Alliance, Chair of the LARP Alliance Media Committee
Co-founder of Enigma Live Game Labs

The Internet gave everyone a voice-everyone has chosen to use that voice to bitch about movies.