The Hunters (2011) Review

The Hunters directed by Chris Briant sounds like it’s going to be a fun ride when you check out the following synopsis I found online:

Alice and her friends are approaching the end of the school year where their dead-end lives will end and the chance of a new life will begin. Before heading off to college they spend one last day together in the woods, the one part of town that has always been off limits to them growing up.

As they stumble upon what they thought was an abandoned fort only to find the walls dripping in blood and decomposing body parts lying around, they are startled to learn they are now a part of an undercover investigation. After being told to get out of the woods they realize they’re trapped, for the Hunters, who call the fort home, never let anyone out alive.

Wow eh? Sounds like it’s going to be one hell of a ride from start to finish from what I’m reading above. Maybe the films going to be really scary and I will jump out of my skin. Well here goes…let’s put the DVD in and press play….

107 minutes later….

Can someone please slap me with a wet fish to wake me up! Gosh, on a scale of 1 to 10 for boredom, I would rate The Hunters as an 11. The synopsis above is completely misleading as the actual friends don’t even appear to be at school and are quite grown up to be honest. They also appear in the film for about up to 5 minutes in total.

What actually happens is Detective Le Saint (played by the director Chris Briant) has been assigned to meet up with a police informant in order to place said informant in a safe habitat, i.e. witness protection. His boss has strictly forbidden him to meet with the informant at Fort Goben, where mysteriously over 20 people have disappeared. Completely ignoring this, he arranges to meet there.

Unbeknownst to Le Saint, a secret organisation uses the Fort as a hunting ground. Not to hunt animals, but fellow human beings (Oh my god, I would never have seen that coming!) Alice who is played by Glee actress Dianna Agron makes the mistake of visiting Fort Goben with a male friend (Friends with benefits perhaps?) and they also become part of the hunt. Can Le Saint and the 2 friends survive or will they become part of the hunt?

I really wanted to persevere with this film and the reason for that was after the first 40 minutes of it, it hadn’t even remotely started to get exciting or horrific. I was hoping that I was going to be shocked in the next hour with scenes of gore and mutilation and really wanted to experience chills and be disturbed by what sounded like quite a shocking film. It just goes to prove the old saying never judge a book (sorry film!) by it’s cover, as by the cover alone you would believe you were going to get the ride of your life.

None of my wishes came true and quite frankly I now feel as if I have lost 107 minutes of my life which I could have spent doing something more constructive (Like hunting down and torturing young female victims. Which I stopped to waste my time watching this DVD)!

Steer clear of this movie, as you will honestly be wasting your time and it won’t scare you or interest you in the slightest. I did however find Fort Goben quite beautiful to look at and would recommend it as a hunting ground if you wish to take your own victims there and hunt them down and mutilate them.

Right, off to work again. I need to find some new victims!

Movie Rating:  

Trailer: