Hunter's Blood

I found this in a pawn shop for like $3 so I said "why not?". I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I was pleasantly surprised. While many will say this is an imitation of "Deliverance", "Hunter's Blood" focuses more on the action and survival rather than the human and moral aspects that made "Deliverance" such a masterpiece. Yes, this is a B-movie, but a very well-acted and well-made one at that. It's nothing but pure entertainment and I'm glad I stumbled across it. There's never a dull moment here and there's quite a bit of humor as well. Be on the look-out for a very young, pre-stardom Billy Bob Thornton as one of the good ole boys. Although his role is very brief, he's a hoot to watch and it was a nice surprise to see him in one of his first films. It's a must-see for any of his serious fans. Go catch it, if you can find it.

"Deliverance" might be the granddaddy of this popular sub-genre, but "Hunter's Blood" has got be one the better imitators of the fold. I love these backwoods horror / action outings where it all comes down to survival, reverting to instinctive methods to keep alive and this keeps the blood and adrenaline pumping throughout. "Hunter's Blood" actually begins slowly setting-up the well-liked characters and the harrowing situations they find themselves in gradually building-up, but when the bone-rattling horror begins its intrusively nasty and unsparing ride through the wilderness with the pacing and jolts never letting up.

A group of city men (father and son, two brothers and friend) set out for weekend hunting trip. However their fun is short lived when they encounter some psychotic redneck backwoodsmen, who after a couple of heated confrontations take a shine to the city blokes and then begins the fight for life.

Rather a traditional and simple set-up (with it being all about the stalk in a cat and mouse game), but it's excitingly achieved with many taut, suspenseful incidents that you can easily look passed its customary staples. It's well-made and professionally photographed with the strikingly detailed lush backdrop coming off the screen and the atmospherically oozing southern sounding music score camouflaging with the imagery and moods. Helping largely would be that of the strong, character actors the cast bestows. You got a steely Clu Gulager and a burley Ken Swofford leading the way along with Sam Bottoms (who pretty much takes charge with a resilient performance when the chaos erupts), Mayf Nutter and John Travolta's younger brother Joey Travolta. There's such a great, believable rapport built up amongst the group. As for the inbred redneck poachers there are fine performances by Lee de Broux as the leader Red beard and alongside him are Billy Drago (at his slimy best), Charles Cyphers, Bruce Glover (who's dementedly good with that cackling) and Mickey Jones. Finding herself stuck in the middle is the ravishing, but durable Kim Delaney. How her character finds her way in, feels like nothing more than a contrived secondary plot method to add much more tension, but it could have been easily left out. Also showing up is Eugene Robert Glazer, Ray Young and in his debut role is Billy Bob Thorton in very small role as one the rednecks that the boys get into a dispute with at a backwoods bar.

Pull on your dungarees, git yourself some moonshine, and curl up with yer sister on the couch: it's backwoods terror time! Five 'city boys', on a hunting trip in the wilds of Arkansas, end up being hunted themselves after running into a group of inbred poachers who don't take too kindly to strangers—especially Yankees.

All right, Hunter's Blood may not be all that original, utilising the standard 'backwoods' plot line that has served so many films well in the past (and since). But with a pretty solid cast (including Sam Bottoms, Clu Galager, and Ken Swofford), well paced direction, great dialogue, and some juicy gore, it still manages to be a gripping experience.

Director Robert C. Hughes doesn't rush proceedings, taking time to carefully develop his characters before the killing begins. We get to see how the hunters interact with each other, and develop an understanding of their personalities. None of the men are portrayed as saints: even Bottoms' nice-guy intern doctor, David Rand, has a laugh at a barmaid's expense (when the boys stop at a bar to stock up on brews).

Of course, even though the group unwisely mock the locals, they don't quite deserve what happens to them once they begin their hunting trip proper.

The unsavoury poachers soon make their presence known, interrupting the guys at their campsite and causing trouble, until tough old-timer Mason (Galager) sends them packing. Mason also gets in a spot of bother when the hunters accidentally stumble upon the poachers at work, and gets in a vicious scrap with Snake, a slimy looking redneck played by Billy Drago.

Fortunately, as things start to get really nasty, a pair of cops on horseback turn up and arrest the back-woods scum, handcuffing them together and leading them away. However, the bad guys soon manage to escape (after their kin ambush and kill the lawmen) and set out to teach the interferin' city boys a lesson.

From here-on in, things get very nasty. The hunters stumble upon the gruesome remains of the cops (a carved up corpse and a severed head), and realise that they are in deep trouble. Their hunting trip has turned into a fight for survival.

What follows is a tense, action packed slice of survivalist cinema that delivers plenty of nice 'n' nasty scenes of violence (including a great shotgun blast to the face), which is only weakened slightly by opting to have David's pretty wife Melanie (Kim Delaney) turn up to join in the 'fun' (a rather unbelievable, unnecessary and unwelcome plot turn, in my opinion).

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Five guys go down the deep South for a weekend of hunting, Fishing and generally macho stuff. However, one of them unwisely decides to start snapping pictures of surly locals when they stop off for a beer.

Worse still, one of them then decides to poke fun at a just as surly barmaid, and in the deep backwoods south, the locals don't take kindly to high falutin' big city slickers, and promptly attempt to extort them. One failed extortion attempt against them later and our boys are camping down, only to run into two spooked Sheriffs on horseback who flat out warn them about poaching hillbillies and further warn them that "people turn up missin' round these parts"...

Does this deter our protagonists? Hell no, they're here to do some hunting and fishing, and they're gonna, by gawd. Only thing is, our earlier hillbillies happen to know the forest like the back of their hands, and they're still mighty rankled at these city slickers besting them earlier...

Hunter's Blood is a nicely effective, well made and tense enough backwoods survivalist flick, that's well worth checking out, with decent performances, a solid cast (with Sam Bottoms, as well as a menacing Billy Drago, and a brief appearance by an unknown at the time Billy Bob Thornton. Who plays a hillbilly. Called Billy Bob) and nasty enough individual scenes.

Any fan of horror or tense thrillers should seek it out, it's an underseen little treat.

This movie is generally scary, especially if you enjoy movies where the theme is being "kidnapped or killed by serial killers and/or hillbillies". Kim Delaney is a hottie in this one too, but the typical dumb mistakes by the city slickers leads them to get chased all over god's creation, somewhere in backwoods Arkansas. When you receive warnings from the locals not to go somewhere, you should LISTEN!!! Overall, a must see!