Director Franck Khalfoun is not above delivering horror fans disturbing movies centered in one setting with films like “P2” in his repertoire. With “Night of the Hunted,” Khalfoun remakes the 2015 film “La Noche Del Ratón” and transforms it in to a survival thriller that’s three parts “Phone Booth” and one part “Inside.” The film is mostly a chamber piece centered on a large gas station where our central protagonist Alice is being held hostage. “Night of the Hunted” depends a lot on the performance by Camille Rowe and she carries what is a solid survival thriller, all things considered.
When unsuspecting Alice stops at a remote 24 hour gas station in the dead of night while on a trip to a work convention, she’s made the plaything of a sociopath sniper with a secret vendetta. To survive she must not only dodge his bullets and fight for her life but also figure out who wants her dead and why.
Star Rowe is just great here, and helps to deliver what is a really good survival horror film when it hits the highs, but is bogged down by a lot of filler and nonsense when it hits the lows. Thankfully there are so many more highs than lows presented. Rowe plays Alice who is essentially a morally gray character spending her time on the road communicating with her husband long distance all the while having an affair with a colleague of hers. This amounts to a bit of karmic reversal a la “Cujo” where Alice is not only forced to fight for her survival, but also answer for the wrongs she’s been indulging in. The arrival of the enigmatic sniper forces her to stare much of her own character flaws in the face, and confront deep seated issues that she’s been unwilling to resolve.
Director Khalfoun is able to derive a lot of tension and suspense with the cat and mouse game that ensues, as Alice is forced to think on her feet thanks to a sniper who almost never misses his marks. Khalfoun sadly stumbles when he tries to add on to what could have been a great barebones horror film, introducing more characters, creating unnecessary red herrings, and relying too much on the conversation between the sniper and Alice. While the circumstances are plausible and even believable, Khalfoun eventually runs out of steam by the last half hour. The whole introducing motive to the sniper in small doses diminishes any mystique he establishes in the first half hour.
Once we learn to understand the sniper he becomes so much less a menace, and a lot more of a person that some audiences will want to meet halfway. Along with the heavy handed social commentary, “Night of the Hunted” could really have withstood a tighter script and less dialogue. Nevertheless, Franck Khalfoun offers up a strong, starkly violent, survival horror film worth pursuing.
In UK Cinemas and available to stream on Shudder on October 20th and will be available on TVOD on November 20th.