Die Jäger - The New Open Season

Trying to secure a potential client, a detective escorting a witness away from an abandoned fortress in the middle of the woods finds the area overrun by sadistic hunters attempting to keep their hunter grounds quiet and must try to get away alive.

Overall this was quite a disappointing effort that does have a few good points. When this one gets to the end, this one is incredibly entertaining as it tends to focus more on the stalking and brutality of the hunters than possible, which is immensely fun with the first seemingly innocent encounter along the trail and the following ambush setting the stage for their game through the woods resulting in his capture making for a fine start to this. There's the demented escape attempt from the underground tunnels and the fun brawling encounter with the deranged hunter that comes off rather nicely here, as well as the first big chase through the woods after his escape where he comes into a thrilling gunfight along the mad dash to get away which is highly exciting, along with the final gunfight pinned down against the wall that makes for a good time overall here. Those are enjoyable enough but the big flaws here manage to hold them off quite well. The biggest issue here is the fact that this one is just so boring and bland to get going that it's nearly impossible to get anything really interesting here for most of the first hour. Tending to the utterly down-beat and depressing lives of the hunters makes the film a drag to get through with this one as hardly any of these scenes make you interested in where this one's going, and the other scenes of the detective trying to get acclimated to life on the force and gaining a girlfriend with the secretary here are no better since these are just dull and lame, and both of them keep this one from getting to its horror scenes for an extended period of time. As well, this goes to such an extent at trying to humanize them that the groups' actions become quite curious as to why they would engage in this, especially at such a crowded area that occurs here and makes their decision to do this quite hard to reason. Lastly, there's also the incredibly lame finale that just doesn't seem to know what it wants to do, from agonizingly slow, drawn-out scenes with background characters that don't mean anything, a torturously slow captive sequence that makes no sense and a limp, lifeless resolution that goes nowhere and really tends to stand out as being really lame. These here do manage to bring this one down significantly.

Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Yes folks, I find this little film very interesting, even if it is a bit long. I would expect a bonus with deleted scenes with such a film. But the same scenes have been kept, unlike many other movies of this kind. I won't repeat the story, a hunter, man hunting one, one more, after the hundred of those we see since several years now. What I like in this feature is that there is no real bad guys, because the "bad" ones are described in such a way that we may feel some empathy for them, for instance the computer repairing, or the other one - school teacher I think to remember. So, during the first part of this movie, you wonder what will happen for all these characters - because there are many others - to meet. And you don't expect that it will happen in such a way.

I like that, it's not so common.

But for the rest, yes, it's not a masterpiece. A genuine B movie.

But when I bought it, I already knew it.

So...

Where do I start? I saw the trailer and as a fan of "b-movies" I figured I'd give it shot. The only reason why I watched this clusterfluck all the way through, is so that I'd be justified in writing a fair review. And to be fair, this movie is horrible. Great shots and cool cinematography, and really the acting isn't bad, its the storyline; (insert drum-roll here) there is none. Absolutely none. The synopsis of this film is so inaccurate. Nothing makes any sense.

Where does this movie take place? France? America? Canada? Why does it take 23 minutes to even get an idea of what this movie "might" be about? Don't even think about watching this film high, drunk or on drugs because it will sober you up quick.

To the writer of this film, I wish I had the money you obviously have. I'd take a few wads of hundred dollar bills and smack you in the face with them repeatedly. This has to be the worst b-movie I have ever seen. Watch at your own risk.

Well it seems for a change someone not involved with a film is posting the first user review. I suspect this is because everyone involved with the film is far too busy denying they had anything to do with it!

I never let the words "low budget" or "independent" put me off a film, I've seen some great films by looking for this kind of stuff. I've also seen some terrible ones and this baby just joined the list very near the top.

OK so marketed as a horror film you soon realise it's anything but. NO matter, I like a good thriller...which this ain't. Confused is the words that comes to mind. Filmed in France but set who knows where, dodgy American accents mixed with a large portion of French language. Plot could be written on the back of a postage stamp but somehow ends up with a 1hr 50min film...

For me the film as advertised started at the 1hr 30min point and by then I was losing the will to live. The main location was interesting but was never used to it's full potential and the effects! Good God the effects... Body parts straight out of a dusty corner at The London Dungeon, guns with holes in the end only an airgun pellet would fit through, watery blood and the most amazing trees that shoot sparks when hit with bullets.

Acting wasn't horrendous given what they had to work with, music was OK. Cinematography was OK with the notable exception of the nightmare scenes which where, frankly, shamefully bad.

Words fail me.

The Hunters isn't the worst movie you've ever seen, it's just a bit of a mess. There are two things to recommend it highly, the cinematography is well above par for this kind of movie, and the location is just incredible. I think the sound editing and music is also quite good. The problem is the good things just serve to highlight the not-so-good things. If the good cinematography is of people trying way too hard to act, it's not interesting. If the location is terrific, but it's not really used all that well, you don't have much of a reason to make the film.

There is some excellent casting for the leading hunters and the main enemy, but the other characters are often miscast, overplayed, or underwritten. Certain scenes feel improvised, while others just seem to go on and on. The lead actor seems to be rather miscast for his role, which is strange since he apparently directed. There are also characters that just kinda drop in and out of the movie, especially the lead (only?) female.

The editor seems to be trying to make this into a horror movie, but it's not, and the nasty jump cuts and random shots of some dude yelling are not scary, they're annoying. The editing overall leaves a lot to be desired, leading me to wonder if the director cut the movie as well, since there's no editor listed in the IMDb crew page.

There was a pretty good movie to be had here had the script thought of better uses for the location and the actors been reeled in by a better director. But overall, it's better than bad, and if you're scouting for an incredible castle in Germany (?) you could do worse than watch this. Perhaps it's best to just think of it as a weird travelogue to Fort Goben.