Hunt Her, Kill Her

The first of 2023’s hunting humans movies to get a big platform (going on general release in the US and appearing in the ever-popular Frightfest strand at the Glasgow Film Festival), this is one of those rare contributions to the subgenre which takes place indoors. The reason they’re rare, of course, is that it’s hard to find indoor locations large enough to accommodate any serious pursuit whilst providing hiding places and enough variety to keep things interesting. When directing partners Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen found themselves inside a large furniture warehouse, they were immediately struck by its possibilities. This film developed from there.

The result is pretty much what you’d expect. The action scenes do a good job of playing out the options offered by the location. The story, on the other hand, feels tacked-on and underdeveloped. It’s tense in places but would be more so if we got to know the central character better. It feels a little like a sketchbook or training manual for how to make a better film.

That central character is Karen, played by Natalie Terrazzino, who seems to have been cast first and foremost for her physical characteristics. She’s small, which means that at first glance she looks vulnerable next to the film’s male characters, but she can slip easily through spaces in the warehouse which are inaccessible to them. She’s also very flexible and has a lot of wiry muscle which isn’t obvious at a glance but shows in the way she moves, with that greater strength to size ratio which smaller people possess. These characteristics enable the directors to do a lot more with her in that location whilst keeping viewers alert to the fact that she’s unlikely to have much chance against a large man hand-to-hand.

She’s in the warehouse because she’s newly separated and needs to work the nightshift, as a janitor, to support her kid. The men who work there are aggressive towards her in the sort of ugly day to day way which many women learn to take in their stride in order to remain employed, but there’s an additional layer of bitterness as it seems they know her ex, and that they feel she was unfair to him in the course of the separation. Of course, no-one really knows what goes on inside other people’s relationships, as the film will remind us, and the speed with which Karen adapts upon realising she’s in danger immediately suggests that this is not the first time she’s faced violence. There is no direct implication that it’s those unhappy fellow employees who are hunting her. She doesn’t know who it is, but there are four of them, putting her at still more of a disadvantage. As she tries to find a way to escape or to defeat them, she also tries to figure out why this is happening to her.

Plot-wise, there are not many surprises, and the narrative premise is stretched too far at the end, to a point where it’s hard to take seriously. Some dodgy acting adds to the problem. It’s the action which is really the point, however. Good use is made of multiple levels and the oddly shaped spaces created by stacked shelves. There is a blatant reference to a scene from Die Hard about halfway through, which Terrazzino handles well. Given the location, much of the fighting involves warehouse tools – highly imitable violence which guarantees high age restriction in many jurisdictions. There is a significant quantity of blood and certain types of violence which may feel uncomfortably familiar to some viewers.

Though it works as an exploration of possibility, it’s not clear who the film is really aimed at. Karen’s position is sympathetic but there’s no real character arc to make us feel as if this experience means something. The result is dangerously close to being about violence for its own sake, and without any redeeming element of style. Swinson and Thiessen clearly have some skill, but one hopes that they will do more with it next time.