Despite some drawbacks - being exploitative, sleazy, cheap and sexually sadistic - this isn't a terminally bad B-movie. In fact, there are quite a few good things which recommend it.
Basic plot line: a border town in New Mexico has two main male leisure pursuits – hunting and hookers. Young chick gets tricked into taking a job as an exotic dancer at a strip joint. She's trapped and trying to make enough money to buy herself a ticket out of there and back home. Meanwhile, a crazed hunter is picking up prostitutes, torturing them, stripping them naked, flying them out into the middle of nowhere and hunting them down as human prey. In effect, combining the twin male leisure pursuits of hunting and hookers – only in a more disturbing and deranged way.
Our main girl gets picked up by the unhinged hunter and so begins a protracted cat and mouse game of chase and evade across a rather beautifully photographed natural wilderness. And it really draws you in. You start to care about and root for the naked and defenceless victim whilst hoping like hell her tormentor gets his just desserts. For this type of low-budget hack job it is rare for genuine suspense and thrills to be skilfully delivered in equal measure, but here the film succeeds. The hunting and fleeing scenario manages to be tense and involving, at times even gripping.
The rest of the film framing the main action is mostly junk – poorly scripted, badly acted domestic and police scenes, cardboard characters spouting horribly inane dialogue, ultra-sleazy super-clichéd depictions of stripping, drug abuse and crude behaviour...and, and just what the hell is Joe Mantegna doing popping up in a very minor role as a dodgy sheriff? Was he drunk or something? He shouldn't have simply fired his agent for this one, he should have shot him. You got Joe Mantegna in your film. He can actually act – unlike most of the rest of the cast. And he's half the way down the cast list. Like, what gives?
Female lead, Danielle De Luca, is really quite good, convincingly vulnerable with a nice line in weary, resigned sarcasm. The times when she snaps out of it and becomes an aggressor in order to save her own life raise a pleasing internal cheer. She gives a good enough performance to get the audience fully on her side and handles a variety of emotions with some dexterity. She suffers with a certain human intensity which adds significant gravitas to her portrayal.
The DEATH WISH-styled vigilante ending adds to the cheap ambiance of the film and feels entirely tacked-on for exploitation's sake alone. A better supporting cast with better dialogue along with a less contrived pay off and this could have been something special. What we have is a quality core set-piece that is well filmed and choreographed but unfortunately book-ended and punctuated by hulking slabs of wasteful B-movie tack.
I believe the story was based loosely on real-life events in Alaska and has recently been filmed again as THE FROZEN GROUND with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage, so there was certainly mileage in it.
All in all, I'd recommend a viewing on the basis of the thrilling and dynamic events at the centre of the film and advise not paying too much attention to the peripheral stuff.
Basic plot line: a border town in New Mexico has two main male leisure pursuits – hunting and hookers. Young chick gets tricked into taking a job as an exotic dancer at a strip joint. She's trapped and trying to make enough money to buy herself a ticket out of there and back home. Meanwhile, a crazed hunter is picking up prostitutes, torturing them, stripping them naked, flying them out into the middle of nowhere and hunting them down as human prey. In effect, combining the twin male leisure pursuits of hunting and hookers – only in a more disturbing and deranged way.
Our main girl gets picked up by the unhinged hunter and so begins a protracted cat and mouse game of chase and evade across a rather beautifully photographed natural wilderness. And it really draws you in. You start to care about and root for the naked and defenceless victim whilst hoping like hell her tormentor gets his just desserts. For this type of low-budget hack job it is rare for genuine suspense and thrills to be skilfully delivered in equal measure, but here the film succeeds. The hunting and fleeing scenario manages to be tense and involving, at times even gripping.
The rest of the film framing the main action is mostly junk – poorly scripted, badly acted domestic and police scenes, cardboard characters spouting horribly inane dialogue, ultra-sleazy super-clichéd depictions of stripping, drug abuse and crude behaviour...and, and just what the hell is Joe Mantegna doing popping up in a very minor role as a dodgy sheriff? Was he drunk or something? He shouldn't have simply fired his agent for this one, he should have shot him. You got Joe Mantegna in your film. He can actually act – unlike most of the rest of the cast. And he's half the way down the cast list. Like, what gives?
Female lead, Danielle De Luca, is really quite good, convincingly vulnerable with a nice line in weary, resigned sarcasm. The times when she snaps out of it and becomes an aggressor in order to save her own life raise a pleasing internal cheer. She gives a good enough performance to get the audience fully on her side and handles a variety of emotions with some dexterity. She suffers with a certain human intensity which adds significant gravitas to her portrayal.
The DEATH WISH-styled vigilante ending adds to the cheap ambiance of the film and feels entirely tacked-on for exploitation's sake alone. A better supporting cast with better dialogue along with a less contrived pay off and this could have been something special. What we have is a quality core set-piece that is well filmed and choreographed but unfortunately book-ended and punctuated by hulking slabs of wasteful B-movie tack.
I believe the story was based loosely on real-life events in Alaska and has recently been filmed again as THE FROZEN GROUND with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage, so there was certainly mileage in it.
All in all, I'd recommend a viewing on the basis of the thrilling and dynamic events at the centre of the film and advise not paying too much attention to the peripheral stuff.