While certainly not a bad film at all, "Hunter Prey" leaves a bit to be desired in the story department. There are two kinds of simple when it comes to cinema; Good simple, where the story and script are very direct and to the point. Uncomplicated, but sound. Then there's bad simple, which is trite and juvenile. Unfortunately, what we have here is the latter of the two. The dodgy and mundane dialogue can be traced back to any low grade, sci fi film or television series of the last twenty years. The performances don't help at all, yet there is something oddly mesmerising about this film. It looks absolutely fantastic. But the attraction and fascination I'm referring to goes much deeper than the brilliant cinematography and design work, which is wonderfully reminiscent of the gritty sci fi of the 70's and 80's.
"Hunter Prey" has Style. Gobs of it, actually. It's directed and put together like a much higher budgeted film. Though obviously designed and shot to mimic the look and tone of films much older, it has a unique filmic quality to it, that is hard to quantify. I couldn't take my eyes off of it, no matter how slow it got, or no matter how inane what the characters were saying, happened to be. It has to be one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen.
It has its slow parts and thus could use a bit of a trim, even at a lean 88 minutes, but I liked it quite a lot and I look forward to Collora's next film with great anticipation. Here's to hoping he'll take on a project with a bit deeper and more intriguing story. All of the other stuff like better thesps, more set pieces and so on, will no doubt come with a bigger budgeted film, which he certainly deserves.
"Hunter Prey" has Style. Gobs of it, actually. It's directed and put together like a much higher budgeted film. Though obviously designed and shot to mimic the look and tone of films much older, it has a unique filmic quality to it, that is hard to quantify. I couldn't take my eyes off of it, no matter how slow it got, or no matter how inane what the characters were saying, happened to be. It has to be one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen.
It has its slow parts and thus could use a bit of a trim, even at a lean 88 minutes, but I liked it quite a lot and I look forward to Collora's next film with great anticipation. Here's to hoping he'll take on a project with a bit deeper and more intriguing story. All of the other stuff like better thesps, more set pieces and so on, will no doubt come with a bigger budgeted film, which he certainly deserves.