The Head Hunter Review

December 2, 2019 at 2:52am
By Jason Stettner

This is a slower, laid back venture that follows a lone warrior (Christopher Rygh) as he travels through the local forest looking for the monster that murdered his daughter. You don’t get a lot of context into that, but that’s the just of the narrative. From there, it’s watching someone deal with pain, as well as the various creatures that roam around.

You don’t necessarily see a lot of action, but it does get rather intense towards the latter portion of the film. For the most part it is a slow burn, with just one individual walking around doing his thing. I wish there was more to the story, or just something else going on within this. It feels slow, while also not having a very long run time.

This is far shorter than even shorter run times that I’ve become used to for more indie showcases. That aside, I found this to be an alright viewing. I certainly didn’t mind it, at the same time I had desired more from it. While this was noted as being horror based, it really isn’t so don’t expect that element to be at play here.

This is quite a lovely film to take in, visually it’s calming and vast in scale. It’s beautifully shot, it just doesn’t have much going on. The action did look great despite what I imagine were certainly high limitations. It provides a really mysterious mystical sort of feeling, but doesn’t lean into it as far as they could have.

The costume work for the warrior was excellent, and his whole shack area was fantastic. Don’t expect much talking, if really any in this one. Just some clear pain, as wounds run deep and the monsters go out to hunt. There was some solid music that largely carried the open forest shots that made up most of the run time here. In general, not a whole lot happened.

The Conclusion

The Head Hunter’s premise is more interesting than the casual walk through the forest that it ends up providing. I didn’t necessarily dislike this, it was a fine viewing. I just wasn’t blown away by it, and it felt long despite being rather short in terms of the run time. The ending portion where things got more intense was great, would have liked to see more of that throughout. I imagine there were budget constraints with this one, but they could have gotten creative with perhaps more natural challenges for this warrior.

I also would have liked a deeper look into what his motivations were, as while it was clear it was his daughter. I just didn’t quite get a full feeling for his drive to continue this mission other than he motioned towards doing so. This was beautifully shot, there was some good tension during combat and I just wish they would have taken the atmosphere further. It’s basically a guy roaming around a forest, walking home with head sacs occasionally to then wash in a stream.

The Head Hunter Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening Provided by Shudder

Rating Overall: 5.8