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.
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.