The film “Hunted” sees its heroine’s home invaded by aliens in what looks like a remake of a Spielberg horror film that was never made.
Disney+’s new sci-fi horror film, Hunted, appears to take the plot from an unreleased Steven Spielberg film from four decades ago. And it was Brian Duffield, screenwriter of The Babysitter, who wrote and directed the feature film. Hunted combines an alien abduction story with a home invasion plot. A young woman living alone in her childhood home finds herself attacked by aliens. The excellent Kaitlyn Dever plays Brynn, the agoraphobic main character of the film. And if some elements of this plot seem familiar to you, there may be a good reason for that.
The basic scenario of Trachée can recall in certain aspects that of Critters and Les Zintrus. However, Brian Duffield’s film takes a more dramatic approach with a vibe that resonates with that of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. But it is not from these films that Hunted borrowed its central concept. The film’s biggest inspiration is an unrealized Steven Spielberg project that shaped pop culture for decades, even though the film was never made.
Hunted recreates Spielberg’s Night Skies
Hunted seems to take up the initial premise of Night Skies, Spielberg’s famous unmade horror film, by featuring a heroine stranded on an isolated rural farm and besieged by invading aliens. Night Skies would have been the first collaboration between Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper and Spielberg, but the two ended up working on Poltergeist in 1982 when Spielberg lost interest in Night Skies.
Below is an overview of the aliens imagined for Night Skies:
“This is a scary first design for Steven Spielberg’s Alien ET, as the director developed a darker version of the film called Night Skies.”
Steven Spielberg then split his idea for Night Skies into two films: one about a child who befriends an alien and the other about a family haunted by inexplicable paranormal activity in their new home.
AND the extra-terrestrial and Poltergeist were both huge hits upon release, meaning that the legacy of Night Skies, Spielberg’s unmade film, was considerable, even though the film itself never went into production. Hunted borrows a lot from Spielberg with its very 60s-looking aliens and flying saucers. But Hunted is not content to simply copy and paste the story of Night Skies and offers a modernized version.
The heroine of Hunted is a lonely and homely woman, while Spielberg’s film saw an entire family confronting invaders. The probable reasons for this change are twofold. On the one hand, the premise of the latter was already well anchored in Signes, and on the other hand, this heroine who takes up the trope of the “final girl” gives the film a more slasher aspect.
A great success in any case and a form of unacknowledged reparation for Spielberg’s unfinished project.