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Date: 5/7/2019
What I’m watching: a really effective and original horror film and an oddly self-serving documentary.
On Video on Demand: The Headhunter
I started watching horror films when I was in junior high school, which was a very long time ago. Now, I’ve not seen everything that comes out in that genre – my life is too short to sit through a bunch of derivative films using the same tired themes and devices – but I’ve see a lot and I have to say “The Headhunter” is a blisteringly effective piece of work.
Director and co-writer Jordan Downey understand the formula for success for a low-budget film: have a story that is original and compelling and have the budget to effectively film it. The worst thing for a low-budget production is to have a story that the budget cannot realize.
‘The Headhunter” has a cast of two, is largely set outdoors and spends its money on several key elements that help insure the success of the film.
The movie brings us to a world that seems familiar. It would appear to be set some time in medieval Europe, but it isn’t. This is a universe that isn’t quite our own.
In a small cabin, a warrior waits to be told to go into battle by his king. When he gets the message from his leader, he springs into action.
He is clearly the kingdom’s monster hunter and he brings back time after time the heads of the defeated creatures that have threatened the kingdom. The tasks clearly tire him and he thinks of his daughter who was killed by one of these monsters.
When he is told the monster that murdered his daughter is now his target he doesn’t waste any time to avenge his child.
Downey uses his running time of 72 minutes efficiently to tell his story. There is not a moment in the film that doesn’t build upon the next moment. Christopher Rygh portrays the monster hunter with a grim sense of exhaustion. As beat up as he is, he doesn’t have anything else in his life. After each successful kill, he throws the bag containing his reward into a box – it clearly means little to him.
I was very impressed by this production. As a horror film it won’t be to everyone’s taste and there are some grueling moments. Gore, though, is not the center of this film. Instead it is a superbly realized script and execution that puts this little film on the map.
On Hulu: Along for the Ride
I’m currently reading a fantastic book about how filmmaking changed in the late 1960s called “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” and by luck I noticed that Hulu has added this 2017 documentary to its current streaming offerings.
I was interested in this film because it’s about the rise, fall and rise again of the late Dennis Hopper, who played a key role with his film “Easy Rider” in the changes affecting the movie studios at that time. Hopper’s story is told through his long-time assistant Satya De La Manitou.
I recently enjoyed the film “Film Worker,” about Stanley Kubrick’s assistant who still works for the Kubrick estate years after the director’s death and I thought this might be interesting in the same vein.
De La Manitou is a storyteller and backs up his tales with interviews with people who knew Hopper and with photos and other artifacts from his own collection.
The difference between the two films is one is about a relatively unknown collaborator with a major director, while this film is about a guy who seemed to be a sort of gloried hanger-on.
There isn’t a moment in the film where Hopper’s life and work isn’t celebrated. Others might have a different interpretation of the director and performer, but not De La Manitou.
There isn’t much balance to the film. Granted, many documentaries are really love letters to a person or event, but that devotion doesn’t make them good. It would have been better to actually speak about some of Hopper’s shortcomings.