VIDEO: Hilary Swank Swears She’s Not Trying to Murder Ike Barinholtz in Provocative Thriller ‘The Hunt’

“The most talked about movie of the year is the one nobody has seen,” explains the atypical trailer for “The Hunt,” a blood-soaked, satirical thriller which Universal Studios pulled from its slate last year after a coordinated outcry and several real-life mass shootings.

Oscar-winner Hilary Swank, Stern Show celebrity superfan Ike Barinholtz, and “Glow” actress Betty Gilpin star in the film which follows 12 “ordinary” American strangers who wake up bound and gagged one day in the middle of nowhere. “Every year these liberal elite kidnap a bunch of normal folk like us and hunt us for sport,” co-star Ethan Suplee explains.

But Swank, in character as one of this most dangerous game’s ultra-rich puppet masters, assures audiences there’s nothing to freak out about. “The last I heard free speech still exists. It wasn’t real. We were joking,” she says with a metaphorical wink to the camera. “You actually believed we were hunting human beings for sport?”

Directed by Craig Zobel, “The Hunt” is written by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse of “The Leftovers” and “Watchmen” fame. It’s produced by Blumhouse, the company behind other satirical genre-benders like “Get Out” and “The Purge” films.

“The Hunt” is scheduled to open March 13 in theaters.