Watch The Hunt For Free

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Films about humans hunting humans are really nothing new, but fortunately director/co-writer Thomas Szczopanski makes this entry in the genre stand out a bit from the pack thanks to his mean'n'lean grasp of narrative economy (this movie runs a tight 74 minutes long), an appropriately harsh and uncompromising take-no-prisoners tone that stays grimly true to itself to the literal bitter end, several startling moments of savage sadistic violence (the participants in the hunt have their tongues cut out and their bodies are chopped up before being fed to carnivorous pigs), and effective use of the sprawling remote sylvan setting. Moreover, Szczopanski manages to generate a considerable amount of tension when tabloid reporter protagonist Alex (a solid and likable performance by Zuriel De Pouslouan) finds himself in way over his head after he infiltrates a secret society of decadent rich freaks who get their twisted jollies from hunting down their fellow man. Anna Naigeon's crisp widescreen cinematography and Fabio Poujouly's rattling score are both up to par. Worth a watch for fans of this sort of thing.

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.

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