MANHUNT

(A.k.a. ROVDYR)

17th July 1974. Pretty brunette Mia (Nini Bull Robsahm) and her brother Jorgen (Jorn Bjorn Fuller Gee) travel with Mia's friend Camilla (Henriette Bruusgaard), in Camilla's boyfriend Roger's (Lasse Valdal) van. They're enjoying a leisurely trip through the countryside, on their way to a hiking holiday to celebrate Camilla's last days of freedom before she leaves for college.

Unfortunately, our hapless quartet are unaware of the bear traps set for human prey in their surrounding woods, and seem oblivious to the connotations of David Hess' "Road Leads To Nowhere" on their radio. After a short while, the bickering foursome stop at a gas station and the girls go to the toilet while the boys fill up the van. The toilets are predictably disgusting, and the girls get their first little scare when they disturb a scruffy local in there.

Afterwards, the group take advantage of the neighbouring roadside café and get refreshments. Unfortunately, cocky Roger manages to upset the locals by referring to them as "inbred". Always a mistake when you're miles from home and lost in a particularly rural area … As the teens leave, a sexy brunette by the name of Renate (Janne Beate Bones) asks them for a lift. She's clearly frantic but the group are reluctant to take a stranger along with them. Save for Roger, that is. And, as it's Roger's van, he welcomes Renate on board.

It's not long into the journey before Renate feels ill, and Roger pulls up to allow her to throw up outside. Mia takes the opportunity to chastise Roger for treating Camilla like a piece of shit, and everything seems set to flare up … until the locals pull up and decide to take the teens hostage.

Mia decides she's not going to take any abuse, but she and Renate pay dearly for their resistance. Which leaves the remaining three idiots as captives, hell-bent on spending the rest of the film trying to escape their captors and find their way back through the woods and to civilisation.

MANHUNT does not have one ounce of originality. It wears it's "70s cool" on it's sleeve, and admittedly does a fair job of visually evoking the era (fashions, haircuts, vehicles etc). But this film so badly wants to be a 70s grindhouse picture, that it practically becomes a cut-and-paste of films like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and FRIDAY THE 13TH.

Worse, it brings to mind more recent offerings that had the same idea but handled it much better - SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE and THE BACKWOODS both sprung to mind. Only, where those films had a purpose - a statement, if you will - MANHUNT has nothing to say. It's hollow.

Had it had an interesting script, likeable characters or a neat twist at the end, perhaps MANHUNT would have been mildly enjoyable. But it scores a zero on all of these counts.

It looks good, the Norwegian landscapes lending their natural beauty to Havard Andre Byrkjeland's accomplished cinematography. And the FX are fairly decent. But that's all the film has going for it. If you like sadistic violence (a woman being forced to fellate a double-barrelled shotgun; people's tendons blown apart - that kind of thing) and are not fussed on any other merits a film would normally strive for, then this uncut presentation of MANHUNT will suffice.

Anyone else will soon bore of the detestable teens and lack of plot, and be yawning after the first half-hour of screaming, swearing and gory violence. And, when the film is only 76 minutes in length, that's not good.

Essentially, it's an insultingly by-the-numbers copy of a dozen better US films.

The film looks superb in a slick, sharp anamoprhic 2.35:1 presentation. Colours are naturally muted, and flesh tones are painfully accurate throughout. There is no grain or obvious edge enhancement.

The Norwegian audio is available in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes, both of which offer solid playback. The latter makes good use of the jolting sound design that occasionally shatters quieter moments of the film. Both tracks offer a healthy balance between dialogue and background noises.

The animated main menu leads into a static scene-selection menu allowing access to MANHUNT via 12 chapters.

There are no extras as such, but the disc is defaulted to open with trailers for THE WARLORDS, THEY WAIT and THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.

MANHUNT is nothing new. In fact, it seems to strive to be something completely unoriginal. It has a visual sheen and technical skill to it, but there's not enough zest or appeal here to overcome the fact that it's one of the most plagiaristic horrors of the year.

Review by Stu Willis