The Deadly Hunt

If you love burning trees you'll like this rather flat thriller. The actual story never reaches boiling point. Roughly 20% of the film is awash with typical early 70's TV background music in the vein of the Rockford Files. It's certainly an improvement on the dialogue.

There's a twist at the end which is not that well disguised. Peter Lawford does silently menacing in the manner of an avuncular uncle who's peeved that he's mislaid his glasses. Anthony Franciosa is reasonably convincing as a gleeful psychopath. Everyone else is sort of there.

I vaguely remember this film. Lawford and Franciosa are two killers after a beautiful woman, and they're out on a mission of death. There's actually three men on the job. The third is a young man who isn't in on the kill, just the getaway. He is an expert driver.

Franciosa is his usual charming self, and Lawford is in his analytical character. Much of the drama is between Franciosa and the beautiful Comer The reasons for the hunt aren't exactly clear. There is a twist ending, the sort that modern audiences will hate, and won't admit to being a twist ending.

Doing this from memory, I hate to use the word "dated", but since this was a piece that prided itself on "modernism", it may well be dated in some areas. Of course it won't be dated for real, since it is set in another era.

THE DEADLY HUNT has the potential to be good, but the lukewarm, TV movie aspect of the production means that this remains a family-friendly production throughout and it lacks the hard edge of many a '70s-era thriller. The story is a simple although slightly convoluted one in which a couple of hired killers are employed to murder a couple out camping in the woods, but at least half the running time is made up of back story and chit chat before anything really happens.

Still, the film offers up some performances from some old-time actors which makes it worth a look for the fans. Former Rat Pack member Peter Lawford is one of the bad guys, alongside Anthony Franciosa (best known to horror audiences for his role in Argento's delightful giallo, TENEBRAE). Anjanette Comer is a pretty and resourceful heroine, although the script requires a little too much screaming from her. THE DEADLY HUNT is well shot with some nice outdoor photography and lots of padded-in footage of forest fires and the like to keep it going, but it only really gets exciting in the last five minutes so it's hardly one of the best of its genre.