Directors Ryan Thiessen and Greg Swinson’s “Hunt Her, Kill Her” has a paper thin premise to work with and—well, not much is done with it, sadly. I love a good survival horror movie, but “Hunt Her, Kill Her” has a great opportunity that it sadly squanders. Despite original motivations for its central villains, Thiessen and Swinson’s film is a middle of the road woman in peril invasion thriller. It’s not a bad movie, but it never really re-invents the wheel when all is said and done. It’s not to say that a movie of this sub-genre can’t tread new ground (look at “You’re Next” and “Hush”), but the movie always seems to settle for the minimum. This keeps the movie from hitting highs.
The film centers on Karen (Natalie Terrazino) on an otherwise peaceful evening during her first night on the job as a lone night shift janitor. She soon finds herself in an unexpected fight for survival when she becomes the target of a group of sinister masked intruders. As the intruders’ disturbing motives become clearer, Karen must use her crafty instincts and barbaric violence to make it through the night alive.
There isn’t a ton of big build up to the central narrative, and much of the exposition for Karen involves some clumsily staged phone calls and plot points. There’s also some baffling moves made in the narrative. Why would she get a job at a place that the friends of her abusive ex husband work? The entire film is set in a warehouse in the middle of the night, which is perfect fodder for a potential stalk and slash thriller. It’s just there’s not a ton of character to the initial setting that the directors drop our heroine in to. Everything in the place seems conveniently staged for the sake of pretty far fetched twists. Not to mention the foursome of masked maniacs rarely feel imposing of horrifying.
Granted, the directors know how to build on their personas, but often times they come off as pure push overs. It’s hard to take them seriously when one of them is literally strangled by Karen with a rope, considering she’s half his size. There’s another moment involving a plunger that I was never sure was meant as a bit of dark comedy, or was supposed to be taken seriously. In either case, Natalie Terrazino’s performance is solid, and she’s an interesting protagonist. She doesn’t go full Rambo when the script demands it, but she’s clever and wily enough to give the film’s villains a very hard time. I enjoyed a lot of her tricks and schemes in her efforts to escape and fight back.
She was very believable as a woman who was once a victim, now forced to retaliate as much as she can. The directors don’t lay out much hope for her, either. I just wish there was more tension injected to the cat and mouse scenes, as well as more explanation toward the villains motivations. There are implications as to what happened prior to the film, but there’s never full context, so it feels under developed. I was also not a fan of the ADR, a lot of which felt incredibly obvious. I don’t know if there was background disturbance or whatnot, but the dialogue all feels either dubbed in, or canned. “Hunt Her, Kill Her” might settle for good background noise, but in the annals of this sub-genre, you can do better.
Opening Nationwide in 150 theaters on March 3rd.