The Most Dangerous Game is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray and Leslie Banks.

He discovers a luxurious house owned by a big game hunter, Zaroff, who is hosting two other shipwreck survivors, siblings Eve and Martin Trowbridge.

After RKO reduced the budget and time spent shooting for The Most Dangerous Game, Cooper and Schoedsack cut down on the cast and special effects they initially planned, resulting in a shorter and more streamlined film.

The exploration of Zaroff's psychological motivation behind his violence--to experience excitement--was unusual for films at the time.

After the yacht's owner disregards the captain's concerns about the channel lights not matching the charts, the ship runs aground, takes on water and explodes.

He notices the channel lights off the shoreline change, and suspects the ship was deliberately led off course to its doom.

Zaroff says four other earlier shipwrecked survivors are also his guests: Eve Trowbridge, her alcoholic brother Martin, and two sailors.

Later, Zaroff introduces Rainsford to the Trowbridges, and tells them his obsession with hunting became boring until he discovered "the most dangerous game" on the island.

Zaroff admits defeat and presents the key to the boathouse, but Rainsford discovers him holding a gun behind his back.

Unsuccessful, he succumbs to his wounds and falls into the pack of his frenzied hunting dogs below, implying that he has now become their “prey”.

The Most Dangerous Game was filmed at night on the same sets used later in King Kong (1933) and with four of the same actors, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, James Flavin and Noble Johnson.

[8] The producing team included Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, co-directors of King Kong (1933).

[6][10] The final 70-second shipwreck sequence contained 25 shots and is a "striking" example of a montage for the early talkie era.

[6] The footage of sharks eating meat with blood streaming from their mouths from the shipwreck were taken from Bird of Paradise.

Russell Metty, who later directed cinematography on films such as Bringing Up Baby, was part of the first camera team.

[14] Max Steiner, then musical director at RKO, initially commissioned W. Franke Harling to write the score, which he did.

[7][17] Editor Archie Marshek reported that people walked out of the film most often in two places: during the trophy room scene with the head floating in a jar, and when McCrea breaks a man's back.

"[19] Joe Bigelow, writing under the name "Bige" at Variety wrote that the film was a "would-be thriller whose efforts at horrifying are not very effective."

He criticized the acting as well, writing that McCrea was "too cool amidst all the excitement," and that Wray "had no opportunity to be anything but decorative.

[23] Writing at American Cinematographer in 1997, George E. Turner called the cinematography in The Most Dangerous Game a tour de force.

[6] In a book on films about hunting, a genre The Most Dangerous Game started, Bryan Senn praised Creelman's adaptation.

Senn wrote that the film avoids any actual romance plot, which would be implausible, and improves upon the dialogue in Connell's original story.

Despite some dated slang, Senn called the film a "thrilling and timeless piece of cinema history".

Both films delineated the thought process in a serial killer's mind, who seeks out and kills victims in a ritualistic way.

[27] The film introduces the theme of sexual fetishism with the brass knocker on Zaroff's door in the shape of a centaur holding a woman.

[28] When Zaroff first appears in the film, a large tapestry of a satyr holding a half-naked woman is his backdrop.

[34] In 1999, Criterion released a restored DVD featuring an audio commentary by film historian Bruce Eder.

[40] The 1932 film may have influenced the Zodiac Killer, because in one of his coded messages, he called man "the most dangerous animal of them all.