The Hunt

French horror films are exactly like buses . You're waiting an entire life time for one to turn up and then several turn up all at once . This is probably down to me frequently tuning in to the Horror Channel rather than France upping their output of genre films . It's not so much horror as you'd get from the Hammer studio or George A Romero zombies shuffling around and is more like a gore drenched psychological thriller that owes a bit to john Woo's HARD TARGET and THE HUNGER GAMES as an investigative reporter comes across a story that may cost him his life

What THE HUNT is good at is creating an unsettling atmosphere . There is nothing more beautiful and tranquil as a deserted woodland . Now just imagine how different things are if it contains men who want to kill you . And that's what the film does brilliantly in conveying an intense sense of danger and menace that could be behind any tree . There's not a lot of dialogue but there's more than enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat

That said it is a rather flawed film . Some people may respect the enigmatic nature of THE HUNT but the questions involved go unresolved . There's not a consistent tone to the film and the early scenes with Alex at the start of the film feel like they belong In another film entirely and the film suffers from a very abrupt ending that will have you scratching your head wondering if the budget had run out and the production had to stop there and then

I rented this by accident, instead of the film of the same name with Mads Mikkelsen. I didn't realise this until after watching it though so took it at face value. I do enjoy this genre so I just thought I'd ordered it on purpose.

It's not great. It has elements of Hostel, Running Man, Hunger Games, amongst others and an odd back story around a porn writer. The latter was hard to follow and I never fully figured out what he did or was trying to do. This didn't seem to matter though as once the main plot kicked in it became irrelevant. It was visually pretty good, surprisingly so for an obviously low budget film. The action was pretty good too and there was a sense of drama and tension. However the grizzly graphic violence went wildly beyond anything required for the plot or artistic value. I'm not averse to violent films and it can give a sense of the true horror of a situation, however in The Hunt all we got was more and more hideous body parts and blood.

It was hard to sympathise with the only proper character and the others were pretty empty. By the end - I won't give it away in case you still want to watch it - I had little interest left. It was only on trying to figure out why I had rented this film that I discovered its poor reviews. Not really worth watching, to be honest. At least it's short.

When it comes to grim horror films, no one beats the French. Unfortunately in recent times French Horror has hit a bit of a dry patch, so you could imagine my excitement when I realized that The Hunt was being released and it was in fact from France!

Being a lower budget film you can guess the flaws the film would have. Some of the camera work isn't up to scratch with a lot of the more widely known French Horror movies. It actually reminded of the terrible "Lady Blood" but thankfully this movie actually demonstrated that even low budget film makers can make a worthwhile movie.

It is a movie that doesn't rely on a solid storyline, but a grim and tense atmosphere. I thought the setting of the woods was very beautiful and haunting at the same time and you could sense the danger around every corner. Our main character didn't really have any charm to him, so it didn't matter whether he survived or not, which can ultimately hurt a film, but once again, the movie didn't rely on that.

What is manages to do is keep you in its suspense. By the end of the film you will be left thinking that something is missing, but this director has all the right things to make him a bigger player in the French Horror world. It has the brutality and nastiness to it that is evidence that this director realizes that French Horror is the leading force in World Cinema and that he wasn't going to steer away from that.

So to summarize, the movie has its flaws, but it is a worthy addition to the ever growing French Horror scene! If you can excuse some of the budget problems, you will get yet another nasty French experience.

The survivalist horror film genre, the concept of humans hunting other humans, for whatever purpose, never strays onto the path of uniformity. While the undercurrent motive remains largely very similar, it is a well presented and interesting genre. Classics such as Turkey Shoot (1982), The Running Man (1987), Hard Target (1993) and the greats' that are Battle Royale (2000), Predators (2010) and Hunger Games (2012) do show that there is variation, imagination and interest in this particular genre.

Director, writer and editor Thomas Szczepanski has tipped his toe within this genre pool and has given a slightly surprising attempt at human confliction. Alex, a small-time reporter is under pressure to find that big scoop and with the sleazy backdrop of porn shops and strippers comes across an extremely secretive and brutal sport of where those who can afford to pay can afford to play, play that game of cat & mouse. Where the result is death and the rule of the game is there are no rules.

What makes this particular venture interesting is the way in which the unfortunate subjects' are enrolled into this elite den of depravity; kidnapped by feature-less white masked wearing thugs in monochrome outfits. Then after finding themselves tied & gagged with tongues cut out, and forced to, literally, run for their live, with each carrying their own purse of value, whoever slays the rabbit will venture in its worth.

This bears more than a feeling of foreboding; it actually accentuates the power of the situation that this reporter has naively placed himself. The whole experiment toward this genre does a fine job in building a steady rapport with Alex and empathising to his plight with the horrors with which he bears witness.

Being a French production, we should at least feel that we are in for a bloody treat while the production values are cheap and the location settings sparse. Whilst not comparing this expedition to the likes of other French Masters' as Martyrs (2008), La Horde (2009) and La Meute (2010), for example, but The Hunt does have its own values in shock, repulsion and bloodstained sequences to match the biggest of budgets. What also propels this feature further is the musical score by Fabio Poujouly, which really drives the action and sickening predicaments to another level and gels the fear and butchery together.

An independent venture, The Hunt is not a bad attempt, and too, not a poor one either, with seemingly restrictive finances it does do what it can in that it repels and disgusts, and thus, too, by doing its utmost to entertain becomes another drop in the ocean of the survivalist horror film genre.

THE HUNT is another attempt at a MOST DANGEROUS GAME style storyline, in which unsuspecting humans are hunted through the woods by a pack of sadistic predators. As a French film it has more in common with the extreme likes of FRONTIERS and MARTYRS than the classics of the genre (and I include the great Van Damme action flick HARD TARGET in that category).

Unfortunately, it's not very good, with an all-too-familiar script that detracts from the experience. The focus on sadism merely highlights the shortcomings found elsewhere in the movie. The 'game' find themselves with their tongues cut off in an early scene and it gets worse from there. The bloodshed is mean-spirited and unpleasant, but it can't hide the lack of film-making talent and the almost non-existent script. THE HUNT ably paints a disturbing picture of humankind at its worst but it doesn't have the requisite elements to make it feel like a proper movie at all.