7TH HUNT

In the pre-credits prologue, a young woman races around the corridors of a disused military school, frantically searching for a way out. She’s cornered by a small group of men and women. As she cowers, a young, slightly Neanderthal-looking man named The Sniper (Jason Stojanovski) approaches with a rifle. He’s encouraged by the others to join their elite group by killing the girl. This, he does.

It quickly transpires that this select committee of killers – known invariably as titles such as The Knife, The Hand and The Inquisitor – utilise the abandoned academy as a base where they can take fresh victims every so often, torture them and finally hunt them down like game. The only rule is that they should not personally know their quarries.

And so, we’re introduced one-by-one to the latest bunch of hapless halfwits that have been chosen as fodder by these mad bastards:

On-screen text describes blonde Sarah (Olivia Solomons) as arrogant and beautiful. Hmm, she’s rather plain-looking in truth but has no qualms about acting like a cunt to her irritatingly girlish boyfriend.

Ariel (Imogen Bailey) is sexier, a deaf girl said to be "focused" – something which is illustrated visually by early scenes of her training hard on a race track.

Her Goth sister Callie (Cassady Maddox) is also on the latest list of targets. When we first meet her she’s embroiled in an affair with a stranger online. She arranges to meet said stranger at a dominatrix club, much to the chagrin of her computer nerd pal Chris (Kain O’Keefe). He needn’t fret too much for her well-being: he’s on their shit-list too.

Lastly, misogynistic bar-dweller Ricky (Matthew Charleston) has also been targeted as a pawn in the latest ‘hunt’.

That’s the potential victims, all of whom are introduced in short vignettes that play out their characters flaws in broad fashion. It soon becomes apparent that the nameless killers have chosen these people for specific reasons and surveyed them for some time before moving in to individually abduct them. It’s easy to see why someone may deem the likes of Sarah or Ricky as worthy of torture. But, the others ...?

It’s hardly worth mulling over, as before we know it each one has been clobbered over the head and taken unconscious to the aforementioned derelict building. There, they meet with their individual would-be killers (The Sniper has chosen Ariel, for example) and the torture/chasing begins.

The subsequent action is somewhat episodic and even less concerned with plot than the extended opening shots. What we do get instead are the odd psychological exchanges between killers and their intended victims, and set-pieces that range from HOSTEL-type gore (The Hacker’s moment to shine) and echoes of a Nigel Wingrove wet dream (Callie’s sufferance).

Where is it all leading, as murderous ringleader The Mastermind (Chris Galletti) presides over events, watching the action from a central room filled with surveillance cameras? That would be telling.

Writer-director Jon Cohen shoots on digital and works with what looks to have been a very meagre budget. You’d hope then that some originality or stand-out performances could lift it above these potential set-backs.

Nope. Performances are largely cringe-inducing, as is the script. And the plot borrows too heavily from the likes of SAW and HOSTEL. Oh, with bits of MY LITTLE EYE thrown in for good measure.

It starts off looking horrendously cheap. The younger members of the cast resemble cardboard extras from "Home and Away" (this is an Australian production too), while the early abduction techniques are unintentionally hilarious – people getting knocked out by gentle flicks to their cheek, etc.

It does get better once the action shifts to the school. Finally, we get a bit of an atmosphere and Darren K Hawkins is able to get scarily psychotic as The Hacker.

But 95 minutes is a long time to sit through a derivative, cheap shocker. The film’s saving graces, then, are the couple of imaginative gore set-pieces, some half-decent misdirection achieved during a conversation between Callie and her tormentor, and Bailey. She’s a fine actress, and easy on the eye too. And, guess what? She used to be in "Neighbours" ...!

7TH HUNT comes to UK DVD uncut, courtesy of Left Films. Their presentation of the film is decent, offering it in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and with 16x9 enhancement. Blacks are generally strong but colour and brightness are sometimes off in darker scenes, probably due to the digital origins of the shoot. Day scenes look very sharp and bright.

English audio is a basic 2.0 affair, playing back without concern or miracle.

An animated main menu page leads into an animated scene-selection menu allowing access to the film via 15 chapters. Oddly, there’s also the option of jumping straight to the film’s end credits.

Extras are limited to the film’s original 2-minute trailer, and a 50-second stills gallery of no consequence.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for THE HARSH LIGHT OF DAY, BLOOD CAR, MONSTRO, ALIEN UNDEAD and DEVIL’S CROSSING.

7TH HUNT is not very original but does at least attempt to offer interesting relationships between the killers and their game. But the cod psychology only works on occasion, and is embarrassing at all other times.

Low budget and flawed, 7TH HUNT is still worth a look. Left Films do a decent job with its presentation.

Review by Stuart Willis