Hunting Humans

I have done four shorts and a feature-length movie and I will no longer have a worry when it comes the quality of my work after seeing this. In all seriousness, the story concept was rather clever and considering it looks like it was done with one camera, maybe two at times, it was well executed. The voice over work inside the mind of the killer was hilarious (or disturbing depending on your sense of humor - mine is sick).

A serial killer, Aric, who has no pattern to follow narrates his inner thoughts as he takes you on a journey of human hunting. His theory is that every one has a pattern and once he establishes yours, your number is up. As he is moving along without a hitch, he discovers that a fellow serial killer is hunting him. A battle of which one can outdo the other's murder ensues along with the cornyness of each one hiring a P.I. to follow the other. Aric gets a hold of his stalker's information and now they hunt each other. I don't want to say anymore in case you would like to see it. It's worth a look in my opinion if you have too much spare time.

This movie really took me by surprise. For the first few minutes I thought it was a fairly standard issue low budget slasher flick, but just as it looked like it was going to take a nose dive, it took a major, unexpected left turn and became a really engrossing and fun ride. I can't say much without giving anything away, but I'll say this - the writer/director did a terrific job working with what could have been cliche'd material, and turned in a film that delivers. Clearly done on a shoe string budget, the movie transcends its low cost and entertains massively.

From the opening monologue the movie drags. For a movie so obsessed with patterns you would think that they would notice just how monotonous the narration is. First we talk about patterns and how the guy doesn't have any. Then we go kill someone. Then back to the pattern talk again. While the premise of two killers going toe to toe is a good one the acting cannot save the movie. While the main characters can be overlooked the supporting cast must have been picked up from the local bus stop. Avoid this movie at all costs.

So I got this movie recommended by a horror-film buff at the local videostore, and I somewhat appreciate that he told me about this movie. It has a good plot and great potential to do something with it. It has a good soundtrack with mostly electronic songs on it. But it felt too much like a student project film for some course on film-making.

The main actor gets annoying fast and can't deliver dialogue at all. (Probably why they cast him in a serial killer role) And having the serial killer talk about what he's doing the entire length of the movie gets really boring and drawn out. I don't know where they got any of these actors, and I hope I'm not "fortunate" to see them in another film. The plot itself falls flat when the multi-twist ending gets pushed in your face and you feeel like screaming, "Oh man!" and feel ultimately disappointed. And if the main guy gives me one more Nietzsche quote, I'm gonna be his new killer.

Overall, a good concept which goes dry and actors who can't act or speak so they speak over the action. And the quality is sub par if that means anything. 4/10

I found myself enjoying this. I understand what goes in to an indie production. I know what it's like to work on a low-budget feature. There were some decent twists in the end. AND a good story from start to finish. The low-budget aspects came through quite often, and some of the acting was spotty, but I really respect what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. I enjoyed Ganz's acting.

The bad- for the most part was the sound mix. It sucked, you could pick out where sound tracks were added- not much was seamless. I don't know if this was shot on 16mm or super -16, but you could often hear the camera sound. Until I heard the camera sound i thought iit was shot on a cheap miniDV cmaera. i don't know why the footage looks below average, but it wasn't too distracting.

But i'd have to say that the orchestral score ROCKED. it was great. don't know where you got it, but it was really good.

Ultimately I respect what the filmmakers were doing, and I say keep rockin'. There was a good story here. Just get better actors and a better camera next time. Rick and Kevin rock, though.