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Dark Hunter
(2004 Feature film)
Verdict: Spinal Tap of Blair Witch
The Making of Dark Hunter
Two cack-handed student film-makers stumble through making a movie, while slyly taking the piss out of the medium.
Duncan Cowan and Mark Jackson play characters of the same names, hot on the trail of a black panther killing the people of Shropshire. A BBC cameraman (Johnnie Oddball) follows the action. He produces the film that we see - though there are glimpses of Cowan and Jackson's film-within-the-film.
Witnesses to the beast's attacks include Jez Foster, dryly co-operating with the film to the extent of miming dog-ownership; Juliet Forester - sultry in rain-soaked Barbour; Nicolette Kay - patiently re-enacting what she saw from her car.
Rachel Rose Reid delivers a fine piece of restrained comedy acting as Emma Hatherway-Smith - the lads' object of desire. Amber Worrall delights as film accomplice Cloey Scott. Giuliano Zampi delivers smouldering sex-appeal as sinister forest tracker Frank Magee.
A lively parody of the Blair Witch genre, with more than a nod to Spinal Tap, Dark Hunter contains sharp vignette performances from Damian Kell and Dominic Cazenove as wannabe actors. Shot in wide-screen, there's also some fabulous landscape photography, washed-out in the edit to give a hand-tinted look that's moody and atmospheric.
