FOR intelligent scary, few movies would surpass the scary which Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt” generates in the hatred a small community, taking matters into its own hands, inflicts on Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), kindergarten teacher since his big school closed,

Five-year-old Klara (a winning portrayal from Annika Wedderkopp) has told kindy head Grethe: “I saw Lucas’ willie”. No community member has experience in dealing with such a situation. Rumour grows from what it feeds on. The community shuns him, the local supermarket bans him, close friends including Klara’s parents revile him. Riding an out-of-control rollercoaster, it is a long while before Lucas, without independent proof of innocence, learns why.

As Lucas’ hopelessness built, defenceless against enemies accusing him without supporting evidence, “The Hunt” escalated my apprehension.

Simple credible evidence merely awaits discovery, leaving the haters without a feather to fly with. Nobody has asked the right questions until the police get involved.

On Christmas Eve, community behaviour at church defies the rubric “Goodwill to all men” and this emotionally powerful, uncompromising, film delivers more surprises before Lucas’s travail is over.

At Palace Electric