7th Hunt revolves around a troupe of sadistic killers who have taken hostage five people in an abandoned facility. Each of the killers has their own specific way of dealing out pain and punishment and for the five hostages it’s going to be a long and arduous night as the try to survive the onslaught.
7th Hunt is a low budget Australian feature which clearly takes a lot of inspiration from past torture flicks, Hostel in particular. The movies main hook is the drama and interplay between the killers and how they deal with their victims. It’s perhaps not as interesting or indeed as powerful as say… Hostel but it does have some good things going for it.
It can feel a bit slow to get going but as the movies rattles along it does grip you more and more. The acting is patchy it’s true, however when the screaming starts things do pick up in this regard and i’d say that all the actors at least look right in their respective parts.
Is 7th Hunt a gory movie? Not really, though what blood and nastiness is there is done decently. Gorehounds will not be satisfied i reckon but folks looking for a more dramatic, cerebral horror will definitely be satisfied to some extent with the emotional arcs of the characters and the storyline as a whole.
One substantial thing to comment on is the ending. It’s very, very abrupt and leaves a very large loose end. Whether this is them setting us up for a sequel (if the movie does well) is anybodies guess but i still think the movie as is should have been resolved better.
So is 7th Hunt a movie worth your time? That’s tough to say, though i would be inclined to recommend it to fans of the torture genre. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a good psychological and at times wince worthy movie, it’s just that its haphazard production values and acting quality don’t quite push it high enough to be great. There’s certainly much worse movies you could watch though.
Movie Details
Director: Jon Cohen
Writer: Jon Cohen
Actors: Imogen Bailey, Tasneem Roc, Cassady Maddox, Jason Stojanovski
Release Year: 2009
Related Links: Official Site, Left Films