FrightFest review – Hunt Her Kill Her

Hunt Her Kill Her

Blue collar divorcee Karen (Natalie Terrazzino) reports for her new job on the night shift at some sort of furniture factory – she’s a combination cleaner and security guard and has nagging worries about a sick child left with a neighbour and her abusive ex-husband (and his many resentful male buddies).  Plus the place is a labyrinth.  In the spirit of that Bob Newhart monologue about the new guard on the Empire State Building finding his first night on the job is the night that King Kong climbs the skyscraper Hunt Her Kill Her sticks Karen with the worst first shift ever … as a few minor irritations with the babysitter, locks that have a trick to them and phone reception are eclipsed when a bunch of masked psychos gain entrance, chain up the doors to prevent escape and start to hunt her down, putting her into survival mode as she channels her experience in a bad marriage into resisting killers who are for some reason out to get her.  A few giveaway hints early on suggest what the villains’ agenda is, but directors Greg Swinson (who also wrote) and Ryan Thiessen (they made the similarly hard-edged Five Across the Eyes in 2006) aren’t much concerned with mystery – this is a relentless chase picture, in which a resourceful heroine takes a lot of punishment (we get the old favourite Rambo DIY wound-gluing and taping), uses the ins and outs of the building (an impressive location) against guys who probably should have rethought the masks which must be hell on peripheral vision, and starts racking up her own body count.  Credibility isn’t really the point either, since the struggle is about as imbalanced as that between Jerry and Tom – in theory, and real life, the cat would make short work of the mouse, but in the movies the victim always has the advantage even when outnumbered by heavier, better-armed, more committed-to-violence aggressors.  Terrazzino impresses in a role which puts her through a lot of misery, but the raspy killers – JC Oakley III is the boss bad – are just masks on stuntmen.  I’m not sure whether the filmmakers decided to ignore the contemporary connotations of the name Karen or lean into them – or maybe just wanted to give real-life Karens a non-obnoxious role model.

Here’s the FrightFest listing.