‘Night of the Hunted’ Review: A Self-Contained Thriller That Never Reaches Its Full Potential
When I saw the trailer for Night of the Hunted, I had high hopes. I thoroughly enjoy a self-contained thriller and count myself a big fan of the film’s co-writer and director, Franck Khalfoun, who directed the 2012 Maniac remake. On that basis, I was expecting something great. What I got was something average.
While Night of the Hunted is very much within my wheelhouse, I ultimately came away wishing some of the fat had been trimmed. The film delivers some intense exchanges, a handful of chilling jump scares, and some relevant social commentary. But the picture gets bogged down by dialogue around the midway point and that keeps it from ever reaching its full potential.
Alice (Camille Rowe) and her secret lover, John (Jeremy Scippio) are headed home from a trip in the wee hours of the morning when they make a pitstop for fuel and snacks. John gases up the vehicle, while Alice goes into the service station. Once inside, she realizes the clerk is dead and she, herself, is in grave danger. A sniper with an itchy trigger finger is watching the premises from afar. He knows who Alice is and hopes to use her to make a violent statement.
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Night of the Hunted starts and ends with a bang. If the film had maintained that trajectory throughout, it could have been great. As it stands, the flick is middle-of-the-road genre fare. The picture gets bogged down with dialogue in the second act. The shooter fills that space with an agonizing monologue about how he is a victim in the quest for social justice. That ties into the film’s messaging about the divisive place we are in as a country and the futility of trying to solve problems with violence. It additionally speaks to the way people that have been hurt sometimes lash out and hurt others, never stopping to consider that they are perpetuating a vicious cycle of victimization. And that solves nothing.
While I agree with a lot of the messaging, I think the delivery becomes too heavy-handed and hobbles the narrative progression. The shooter’s speech might have been streamlined and condensed into a paragraph or two. But we are instead subjected to a monologue that quickly turns tedious.
Fortunately, the film eventually course corrects and reestablishes a sense of tension in the third act. But the damage has been done by that point. I was taken out of the moment by the excessive monologuing and it took time for me to reestablish a level of investment. Even though the proceedings eventually recaptured my interest, I was less engaged as a result of the second act derailment. With that said, the stakes are raised as the denouement draws nigh. Alice comes face-to-face with the shooter in a pretty impressive showdown. And that certainly makes up for some of the film’s shortcomings.
Part of what helps make the third act more effective is that we get to see Alice dig deep and use the limited resources she has at her disposal in an attempt to outwit the shooter. She makes for a clever protagonist and serves as a nice counterweight to the verbose antagonist. She is resourceful and capable of thinking on her feet.
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Alice is also given the chance to prove herself altruistic, giving the film more of an emotional core. The dynamic she develops with a young child who becomes stranded at the service station amidst the chaos gives the viewer further reason to invest.
Alice is also given the occasion to demonstrate a level of badassery in the final stretch. She impressively weaponizes her surroundings in the denouement. I won’t say anything more than that, so as to avoid spoiling the surprise. But you’ll know exactly what I mean when you see the film.
On the whole, Night of the Hunted is an average horror thriller that gets more right than it gets wrong. A second act lull keeps the film from realizing its full potential. But the picture manages to be reasonably entertaining in spite of its shortcomings. If you’re keen to check the flick out for yourself, the film is out now on Shudder.
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‘Night of the Hunted’
Summary
It suffers from some pacing issues. But ‘Night of the Hunted’ gets more right than wrong.
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