Night of the Hunted

Khalfoun can boldly be counted among the horror filmmakers from whom fans expected big things early in his career thanks to one big hit, but that ultimately didn't materialize. Night of the Hunted is a generic thriller with a crazed sniper, nothing more, nothing less. (23.10.2023)

An all too ordinary thriller from the French by the once talented Franck Khalfoun. In the past he has given us the fine thriller P2 and an excellent remake of Maniac, so he has quite an eye for the madman, but his new thriller is a weak concoction that brings nothing new to the genre, is minimalist, quite boring, and pretty pointless, at least for me. A woman and her colleague stop at a gas station at night and a psychopathic sniper appears out of nowhere and starts shooting at them. But nothing is a coincidence and the main character soon learns why she is the target. The entire film takes place in a gas station and consists of dialogue over walkie-talkies between the main character and the attacker, so it's more of a lightly suspenseful conversation where the occasional random person wanders in to say nothing. Visually it's fine, the acting is fine too, the attacker motif makes sense and the finale is even slightly more brutal, but it's not really enough. This is the kind of film I enjoyed maybe 10 years ago, but today it has nothing to impress or surprise me. For some it may be an OK one-off, I was quite bored. 4/10. (22.10.2023)