Hunt Her, Kill Her (2023) Movie Review: For any survival thriller to succeed, it is essential to clearly establish the motive of the perpetrator of the violence and provide some story to the protagonist on the run for the audience to develop an empathetic relationship with the character. On top of that, if the villain is masked, we are bound to recall good ole’ memories of Scream movies and anticipate a climactic revelation at the end. Hunt Her, Kill Her (2023), directed by Greg Swinson and Ryan Theissen, appears to be a little confused about its intentions. Is it going for a prolonged sequence of the chase, or does it seek to actually have a story that it wants to tell? The movie is, unfortunately, a solid half-hearted attempt at a taut thriller.
The story follows a young mother, Karen (played by Natalie Terrazzino), on the first night of her job as the lone janitor in a warehouse. She has left her young daughter at home with a neighbor and is trying to make ends meet with this job. On this night, a strange series of events begin to occur after she has been carefully delegated her responsibilities. Soon (within 20 minutes of the movie has begun), she finds out that a group of masked intruders are after her life. The rest of the film follows Karen and her survival instincts as she tries to save herself.
My biggest problem with the film is that it rests on no tension in the plot. You can guess quite early in the film who the attackers can be. Unfortunately, despite being informed that there was a break-in at a nearby warehouse on one of the previous nights, there are no clever flourishes in the plot to give away the obvious. It then becomes annoying that the intruders must wear a mask, and Karen must proceed to unmask each of them in the course of the film.
The opening credits wonderfully map out the geography of the place, giving us an idea of the maze-like structure of the warehouse. It is an ideal place for a survival thriller to pan out. The industrial equipment stacked around – cardboard boxes, wrapping plastics, tools, sellotapes, wood, and steel – find themselves adequately used over the course of the whole night.
I liked how each of the deaths that take place during this film is messy. For instance, when Karen is disarmed and left to fight one of the attackers, she repurposes a toilet brush as a murder weapon. Understandably, it doesn’t kill the attacker at the first go but comes close to it only after repeated trials. While Karen is full of makeshift ways to clean things (read: clothes and wounds), the quick wit of her character proves to be a saving grace in an otherwise mostly-dull thriller.
Hunt Her, Kill Her (2023) is also hard to enjoy because the background music feels too repetitive. It doesn’t tingle you enough to run a cold shiver down your spine, and most of the time leads to false escalations. The silence at the beginning of the film, when Karen is going about the prescribed duties, gives the first half an ominous vibe, always making you dread that some upsetting factor is around the corner. At one point in the film, it started feeling like a video game when the attackers were constantly talking with each other in monosyllables and short phrases. The writing contributes to dragging down the spirit of the film.
Terrazzino is not compelling enough to watch on screen. She gasps in horror and makes the most concerted effort to survive the night, but her character lacks sufficient depth to make you care for her enough. None of the attackers, in fact, can outsmart her. Her strength also lies in the spirit of her motherhood, a theme that I wish could have been better explored in the film. Yet, she shoulders the whole film and is the only reason why you should watch this. This small-budget thriller risks a single-location setting and tries very hard to root all its feels in lighting and angles. However, it isn’t clever enough to hold your attention. The story is simple enough to entertain you, but it could have been more effective.
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