The Hunt (2006)

Directed by Fritz Kiersch [Other horror films: Children of the Corn (1984), Surveillance (2006)]

I’ve vaguely known of The Hunt for a while. I imagine I first ran into it after hearing it was directed by the same guy who made Children of the Corn. As it was, the movie wasn’t half-bad. Well, it’s probably still below average, but honestly, The Hunt had a decent amount going for it.

What I found most intriguing about the film is that, for a lot of it, I had no idea where it was going. Sure, the main story – two guys (Robert Rusler and Joe Michael Burke) and a kid (Mitchell Burns) get lost in the woods while hunting – made sense, but it was the deeper stuff I wasn’t sure about.

At first, I thought this was going either a slasher-esque route, with a focus on snuff films. Then I thought perhaps it was something to do with government experiments, and then the idea of aliens came to mind. Before aliens, though, I was considering a Most Dangerous Game-type situation where humans were being hunted. Hell, at one point, I even thought of evil trees. It’s not that the movie’s wild or anything, but knowing as little about the movie as I did going in, I just had no idea where it was going.

The biggest problems here, I think, would be an unsatisfactory finale mixed with an uneven execution. I think part of this has to do with Robert Rusler’s character, who, along with leading me toward incorrect conclusions about the nature of the movie, was also just such a big dick that he was hard to care for. The story here is decent, and while the whole scope is just merely glimpsed come the finale, I sort of wish they gave us a little more meat in some form.

Oh, and while I sort of liked the whole “This is where the characters are after the event of this movie” thing at the end, it felt close to claiming the events of the film were true, and my hatred for that should be well-documented by now (as my thoughts on both Paranormal Activity and There’s Something in the Shadows demonstrate). This film does has a bit of found footage feel, but it certainly is more than that, so if that is one of your concerns, try not to let that turn you off.

Joe Michael Burke took a bit to grow on me, but he ended up playing a pretty decent character. As I’ve said, Robert Rusler (A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Unwilling, Blood Feast) played a bit of an asshole, but he did it well enough. Cliff De Young (who I suppose I recognize from The Tommyknockers, but he was also in such films as Dr. Giggles, The Craft and The Westing Game) was decent, though he wasn’t involved in much of the action. For a younger individual, Mitchell Burns was solid, and Thomas Cunningham had a good scene toward the end.

I will say that some of the special effects during the finale were a bit suspect, but overall, I was actually happy with most of them. They’re not really necessary most of the time, of course, but when they do play a part in the film, it’s not that shabby.

Like I said, though, I think the biggest problem here is probably the uneven execution. The story is decently interesting, and though I’d have preferred a little more explanation as to what exactly was going on, The Hunt definitely wasn’t a movie I’d call awful. It’s unlikely that The Hunt will end up being a memorable movie, and it’s probably below average, but for at least a single watch, it’s not a bad time.

6.5/10