Night Hunter

In a change of pace, Roger Corman just distributed "Night Hunter", and didn't have anything to do with its making. That may explain why the production values of this Don Wilson movie a little better than usual, with some well-chosen locations that don't make this effort look as cheap as usual. Despite this, I knew I would still be in for a rough time, since the movie was made by schlock producer Ashok Amritraj. The script is pretty bad, with plot points that are never explained (like the healing elixir) or don't make up their mind (the movie at one point says vampires can be killed by breaking their necks... then later says they can be killed by breaking their backs!) Most people who watch this movie won't care about the script, and will just be interested in seeing the action. But be warned, the action isn't very good. The action is extremely tightly filmed, with rapid editing and unspectacular choreography. With most of his movies being as badly made as this, I think I know why Wilson retired from making movies several years ago.

Every single fight scene (and there was a ton of them - this is a Don Wilson film) was ruined by shaking the camera. What's the point? Not only that, but most fight scenes included flickering the light intensity. And to insure complete dizziness a few scenes put the camera on a carousel to spin the action in a circle. It's crude, unpleasant and kills the film.

Otherwise this would have been a decent non traditional, vampire, time wasting film for people who may like hand to hand combat.

NIGHT HUNTER is a godawful foray into the action horror genre from martial arts specialist Don "The Dragon" Wilson. To say that it's a dud is an understatement; this is a film with absolutely terrible action choreography and direction, the nadir of which is the decision to shoot the fight scenes with what can only be described as an "earthquake cam", constantly trembling which makes the scenes unwatchable. Thankfully director Rick Jacobson has improved in recent years with his work on various episodes of the SPARTACUS TV series.

The plot is very light and features Wilson (who's made up as a goth, much like THE CROW) going after a vampire gang who were responsible for the death of his family. A seemingly innocent woman gets involved in the mess, and there's a lot of killing, although few special effects. However, this truly is one of the poorest-directed of all the B-movies I've sat through, and anybody who claims to enjoy this stuff must be a real glutton for punishment.

I usually enjoy a good "Slay the vampire" movie, but this was not one of them. Don the "Dragon" Wilson brings his dark brooding image to the sceen, but the writers forgot to bring an original idea to the script. Also someone had the idea to shake the camera during each fight to give the scene a earthquake effect. I fell asleep three times during the first half hour of the film. It would have been better if I had just kept on sleeping.

Right, well I have to admit that when I stumbled upon this 1996 horror action movie titled "Night Hunter" here in 2023, and seeing that the movie had both Don Wilson and Maria Ford on the cast list, of course I was immediately interested in watching the movie. I had never actually heard about this, but I figured that a vampire-themed movie with Wilson and Ford had to be interesting.

Boy was I wrong. The storyline in "Night Hunter" was bland and boring. Writer William C. Martell put together a script and storyline that failed to entertain me. And the movie felt incredibly amateurish and sluggish in the hands of director Rick Jacobson. It most definitely wasn't the usual hard-hitting action that one would assume from Don 'The Dragon' Wilson.

The acting performances in "Night Hunter" were adequate enough for what they turned out to be. But you're not in for anything grand or memorable here.

I have to say that "Night Hunter" will just as quickly fade into oblivion as it snuck in under the radar.

My rating of "Night Hunter" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.