Duo pour une Mort Noire

"Headhunter" is a low-budget horror movie shot in Cape Town but set in Miami. It's a little flick with a good and intriguing premise but a sloppy script. Director Francis Schaeffer counterbalances that by trying to make the movie as stylish as possible. You can definitely see the influence movies such as "The Evil Dead" had on this one. The cinematography in general is pretty good, provided you're watching the movie on Blu-Ray (the disc is out-of-print and I had to retrieve it on eBay myself about 10 years ago). Despite the director and the camera team using every trick in the book, the very low-budget prevents the movie from having a great-looking monster and decent gore: had they spent a bit more on the FX and fixed the script, it could've become a cult classic. I personally still love it as an obscure flick from the video rental days.

Detectives Katherine Hall (Kay Lenz) and Pete Giullani (Wayne Crawford) are investigating a bizarre series of beheadings in Miami. With Christopher Lambert nowhere to be seen, they focus on a small community of Nigerian immigrants who believe they are being haunted by a vengeful spirit from their homeland. Before you can say THE BELIEVERS, our heroes find themselves targets and their personal lives attacked. This is a pretty average 80s horror flick that loses points for being boring. It is too bad because director Francis Schaeffer stages some effective scenes (all of the kill scenes are well done), but then bungles the human drama. The end has Crawford chasing the main beast - that looks kind of like Rawhead Rex - around a tiny backyard with a chainsaw. The movie needed more crazy stuff like this, and less stuff like Crawford arguing with his wife. The film ends with Headhunter being resurrected back in Africa, but no sequel arrived.

"Pete Giullani" (Wayne Crawford) and "Katherine Hall" (Kay Lenz) are two Miami detectives who are partners and are given an assignment to investigate a series of brutal murders among the small Nigerian community in their city. At the same time Pete has just learned that his wife is having an affair and because of that he has decided to move out of the house. Not knowing where else to turn he goes to the only person he can trust-who happens to be Katherine--and asks to move in temporarily with her. She reluctantly agrees even though she has a boyfriend and a private life of her own. Unfortunately, if that wasn't enough, the murders begin to increase and soon both Pete and Katherine begin to suspect that the person responsible for these grisly murders may not be human after all-and it has now targeted them. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that, although the plot certainly seemed interesting enough, I found this film to be somewhat disappointing overall. For starters, the demon wasn't depicted until the end of the film and when it was finally shown it looked quite ridiculous. Likewise, too much time was spent on the subplot involving Pete's marriage which wasn't even remotely interesting. Additionally, other than Kay Lenz, none of the actors really stood out and for that reason it was hard to get overly enthused about this movie at all. That said, I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

A cop (Wayne Crawford) whose wife is having an affair on him finds himself facing off against an African demon that has just arrived in the USA and is cutting off everyone's head. Kay Lenz is his partner and love interest. This film is very crudely made and lifelessly acted, but somehow or another it manages to move along at such a fast pace and also manages to be very entertaining and exciting the entire running time that you really don't care.

My review was written in February 1990 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.

"Head Hunter" is a less than engrossing horror film set in Miami that was filmed in South Africa in 1988.

Kay Lenz and Wayne Crawford are Miami cops stuck with the case of gory murders breaking out in the city's Nigerian community (if such a subculture actually exists there). Victims have their heads cut off, and our sterling heroes trace this to an ancient voodoo-style ritual. Predictable climax has the heroes' friends possessed by a demon.

Poor shot matching fails to meld convincingly the Miami locale with the African-lensed principal photography. Worse yet, this is a screen portrayal of Miami with no Latin Americans in sight.

Adding to the insult of pic's premise is the set of bored walk-throughs by the cast, plus unconvincing makeup effects for the demon's final reel appearance.