Eric McCormack has spent years as a familiar television presence, but his latest turn as a serial killer pushes him into far darker territory. The twist is that he is not exploring that darkness alone: his son Finnigan is right there with him, sharing the same role and the same set. Their work on The Hunting Party turns a genre exercise into a family experiment in how far actors can go together.
The project gives Eric a chance to rethink what it means to play a villain while also watching his child step into the business in real time. It is a rare combination of professional challenge and personal milestone, and it is reshaping how both McCormacks talk about craft, horror, and the responsibilities that come with embodying someone “arguably evil.”
Reinventing Eric McCormack as a Serial Killer
For viewers who still associate Eric with the rhythm of sitcom banter, his work in The Hunting Party is a sharp pivot into psychological horror. Instead of leaning on charm, he is tasked with inhabiting a killer whose menace builds slowly, through small gestures and fractured memories. The character, Ron Simms, is introduced as a man whose past is catching up with him, and the performance depends on Eric’s ability to suggest decades of damage without tipping into caricature. That tension is central to the show’s hook, which positions The Hunting Party as a character study as much as a genre thriller.
The series itself sits inside a broader wave of prestige horror on television, a space that genre veterans Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter have already explored with projects like the limited series Hell Motel. Their work on Shudder Checks Into Hell Motel, An All, New Limited Series From Slasher Creators Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter Premier, helped establish a template in which killers are less masked monsters than products of specific histories and traumas, a sensibility that carries into The Hunting Party’s focus on Ron Simms. The creative team’s experience with that earlier show, detailed in the announcement for Shudder Checks Into Hell Motel, underlines why Eric’s casting matters: he is being asked to ground a killer in the same kind of layered storytelling that defined that series.
A Father and Son Share One Killer
The real innovation in The Hunting Party is structural. Eric and his spitting, Image Son Finnigan are not simply playing related characters, they are sharing a single role across time. Ron Simms appears in different eras, with Finnigan handling the younger version and Eric taking over decades later, and the two actors had to coordinate everything from posture to vocal cadence so the audience would accept that they were watching one continuous life. Their Dual Hunting Party Role turns what could have been a simple flashback device into a study in how behavior calcifies, and it required father and son to dissect the character together long before cameras rolled.
That collaboration began with Finnigan’s casting, which marked his Son Makes Acting Debut Alongside Dad in The Hunting Party. Eric has described the experience as a New Experience for Both of Us, since he was simultaneously guiding a newcomer and adjusting to the vulnerability of seeing his child step into such a dark part. The younger actor has been candid about the weight of that responsibility, explaining that it is really horrifying to have a character that is so arguably evil in everything that they do, a sentiment captured in his comments as Finnigan reflected on the role. For Eric, who built his reputation as The Will, Grace alum, the process meant trusting that his son could handle material far removed from the lightness of his earlier work.
On set, the two McCormacks treated the part almost like a relay. Eric has said he Wasn, Expecting to Play the Same Killer as His Son in their first Joint Project, but once the structure was clear, they began trading ideas about how Ron would move, react, and even sit in a chair. At one point, Eric joked that they were sharing a chair, 20 years apart, a description that captures how closely their performances are intertwined, and that image of Finn starting the scene and his father finishing it has become a shorthand for their approach, as detailed when Finn and Eric broke down the character’s earliest moments. The result is a killer whose presence feels consistent even as the show jumps across decades, a continuity that depends on the family resemblance as much as the acting choices.
Inside The Hunting Party’s Dark Family Experiment
The Hunting Party uses that dual performance to explore how violence echoes through time, and the McCormacks’ real relationship adds an extra charge to scenes that might otherwise play as standard genre beats. When the younger Ron touches a rabbit or holds a weapon for the first time, the audience is watching Finnigan build the foundation for the man Eric will later portray, and the knowledge that they are father and son in real life blurs the line between nurture and nature. Eric and Finnigan have both emphasized that they approached those early scenes with care, aware that they were not only charting a killer’s origin but also shaping Finnigan’s first major screen role, a dynamic highlighted when Son Makes Acting Debut Alongside Dad was first announced.
Behind the camera, the production leaned into that intimacy. Eric and Finnigan have described long conversations about Ron’s psychology, with Eric and Finnigan trading notes on what specific childhood moments would harden into adult pathology. The Hunting Party, Eric and Finnigan agree, became a kind of master class in character work, one that unfolded in front of a crew rather than in a classroom. Eric has called the project a special experience for Eric and Finnigan as they collaborated on the shared role, a sentiment echoed in coverage of The Hunting Party that underscores how unusual it is for a parent and child to dissect the same fictional mind. For viewers who have followed Eric from sitcoms to horror, and for fans of genre storytelling shaped by the same team that delivered the Seasonal Information and Number of Episodes that defined Hell Motel, as cataloged in the Seasonal Information entry, the McCormacks’ experiment offers something rare: a serial killer story that is also, unmistakably, a family drama.
That dual identity is what makes The Hunting Party stand out in a crowded field of dark dramas. It is not just another exercise in shock, but a carefully constructed narrative in which a father and son test the limits of their craft together. Eric’s willingness to let his spitting, Image Son Finnigan step into such a morally fraught role, and Finnigan’s decision to confront that challenge head on, turn the series into a case study in how horror can be both a professional crucible and a deeply personal rite of passage. Their Dual Hunting Party Role, first teased when His Spitting resemblance was spotlighted, ultimately delivers on the promise of the premise: one killer, two McCormacks, and a shared performance that lingers long after the credits roll.
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