Leofwine_draca MANHUNT– nothing to do with the controversial video game of the same name – is yet ANOTHER entry in the 'survival horror' genre that's flourished since THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE came out in 1974. More recently, the genre has seen a rebirth with the likes of WILDERNESS, EDEN LAKE, SEVERANCE and many others, and the distinction this film has is that it's Norwegian. Nothing else is remarkable. This is a lean, pared-down, unpleasant little film detailing a bunch of campers who run afoul of some hunting nutters. And that's all there is to it.The direction is all right, the performances pretty good. Visually, there's a muted colour palette that turns the woodland setting into a drab grey and brown mix, presumably to add to the earthy feel. The atmosphere is pretty good. I enjoy these films that link with the primeval in some way and the forest is always a perfect backdrop for true horror. I don't think any film has managed to surpass THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT yet, but this is another beast entirely. It's a bit like THEM without the set-up and with extra gore.The gore itself is a big talking point and it is explicit. There are impalings, stabbings, guts, and plenty of blood, as well as one of the most painful gunshot wounds I've seen on a film. Thankfully, it's all shown rather briefly rather than being dwelt upon in detail, but it does leave a nasty taste in the mouth, as was undoubtedly the intention. The sleazy scene in which one of the bad guys forces the barrel of his sawn-off shotgun into a blonde girl's mouth is the worst part of the film, threatening to turn the whole production into a misogynistic mess. The ending is fairly intense, although not a patch on EDEN LAKE's, and the director pays his dues to THE LONG GOOD Friday in a BIG way. So, MANHUNT isn't going to set the world on fire, but it's a perfectly serviceable kind of film that delivers plenty of shocks and gross moments during its short running time. I enjoyed the experience, but I'm not in a hurry to see it again.

Gruffhouse Reviews (gruffhousereviews) First thing to mention was that when I began watching this movie, I had no idea it was a foreign film. It wasn't until watching the opening credits and realising that the entire cast was Norwegian that suspicions began to arise. I in fact really like subtitled/foreign horror movies. It means at no point can you take your eyes off the screen leaving you open to every fright and horrific image that the movie has to offer. Also, you can't tell if the acting is worse than Brendan Frasers (in anything but The Mummy Returns and that one episode of Scrubs).As a survival horror movie, it could be thought of as a bit of a tribute to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the ultimate survival horror movie) – it was even set in 1974 (coincidence, I think not). 4 unwitting "friends" pick up a hitch-hiker (Did I hear Texas Chainsaw Massacre?) at a petrol station as they drive through an ever thickening forest. This leads them into a battle to survive the attacks of a gang of hill-billy hunters (or whatever the Norwegian equivalent of a hill billy is).I had two real issues with this movie. Firstly, the ending (surprise surprise). Horror movie endings always run the risk of being a disappointment because either another movie has done it, it'll be too subtle that we won't understand it, it can't be a truly happy ending because, y'know, it's a horror movie so they force a "horror ending" or it'll be so cliché that even a bomb, seventeen knife wounds to the chest and a shotgun blast to the face won't kill it. This ending unfortunately falls into the "too subtle to explain what's happened". Did she get away? Was the woman who picked her up in cahoots with the other bad guys? It left a lot of unanswered questions and not in an interesting way.Which leads neatly into my second issue: the bad guys motivation. Some horror movies are so scary because the anti-hero has no real reason to attack the person they're attacking (e.g. The Strangers) but even then there seems to be some sort of motivation or explanation for why they are doing it. But in Manhunt that doesn't seem to be the case. Are they hunting these people? Why does one guy find them and leave them there to get away? Is it a game? Are they just sadistic redneck Vikings?On top of this, it's not entirely clear why the four of them were travelling together. 2 of them hate Lassa Valdals "Roger" who, to be fair, was a douche bag of Kanye-West-esque proportions and he clearly hates all of them. Why would they go travelling together in a cramped mini-van (another throwback to Texas Chainsaw Massacre)?However, it wasn't all bad. It was made in 2008 but set in 1974. Hopefully intentionally, the quality of the film was as if it was made in the seventies except with make-up, blood and guts good enough to make you believe that even the goriest of wounds were real. The camera work saved a lot of this movie including some clever lingering shots of the landscape cementing just how isolated these individuals are.

wickenhofer Wow, this movie is underrated by IMDb users. Just saw this again on DVD, and it still holds up. A lot of people i know really love this movie, so I'll give it a ten just to even things out.The people who dislike it don't seem to be familiar with the sub-genre it obviously homages. Rovdyr is an exploitation-film in the best sense; a dirty, uncompromising little low-budget gem devoid of pretensions. Hell, it even has a David Hess song on the opening titles! It seems like most people expected a snappy and glossy teen-flick with lots of twists and turns, but what they got was a dirty and gritty horror-film that pulls no punches.The films style is rugged, and it comes across as a simple and horrific survival-horror. It doesn't focus on plot, this is not a whodunnit by all means, but it's more about the exact situations the characters face and how they react to it, as survival-horrors are supposed to. As always in these films, the prey becomes the hunter and the characters find their inner strength and so on. So nothing new, but it's well done.The actors are good as well, being both realistic and believable in the beginning, and convincingly portraying real terror as all hell breaks loose. This is actually pretty powerful stuff. It's well shot, with a dirty visual style, almost all hand-held and in close-ups throughout the film. The sound-design is top-notch, and the music by Simon Boswell (who also scored Jodorowskis "Santa Sangre" among others, another cool detail) is surprisingly serious and emotional. It's evident that the folks behind this film love the genre, know the genre and take it seriously. The effects are great and the violence is punishing too; there's some really nasty stuff here.Sure, we've seen these types of films before, but done right it's always entertaining. It's as if someone made a shameless rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1975, without any of our modern-day influences, intending it to play in drive-in theaters. There are a few problems in the first act, and sometimes you wish they had been more original, but it's simplicity is also one of it's major strengths, so i guess it evens out.So, this is not a flawless piece, but i liked it because it was brutal and true to its roots.I also read somewhere that the director was just 24 years old when they started shooting it, that it was made for an extremely low budget, and that the main crew worked for very little money in order to make this film. Take that into account and it's a pretty impressive little film.

Vooon I had quite high expectations after overall good reviews in the Norwegian media. And thinking of the excellent movie Villmark, and the rather good Fritt Vilt, I wondered if this was going to top them both.First of all the acting is embarrassing. The first part of the movie is loaded with cliché dialog, overacting and awkward moments. Especially for the audience watching. The second part is generally an unmotivated slaughter with no plot at all - and very little dialog as far as I remember.The only positive I can point my finger on is the effects and the sound. The latter is actually the only thing that might be scary, I jumped in my seat a couple of times because of the loud volume. The effects are mostly uncomfortable. On the other hand, the plot is so predictable that it's impossible not figuring out what will happen next. Which makes the movie utterly boring and uninteresting.At last. One of my biggest problems with this movie is that you never get a clue of why things are happening. It's just unmotivated random violence, which starts out of nowhere.I don't really recommend this to anyone, it's a waste of time. I don't understand why it received good critics at all. If you want to see a good Norwegian thriller I'd recommend Villmark.