Truly Dreadful Film

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

As found footage films go, this begins with one of the most persuasive scene settings I've seen for some time. Whilst testing his camera equipment, Jake (Josh Stewart, who also wrote and directed) is enjoying a laugh with his tiny children, who in turn are screaming with delight at the images on the camera. They don't know they're part of a horror film, they're just having fun; as an audience member, I'm instantly thinking that surely such an appealing family unit isn't going to be wrecked by anything 'orrible.With little further build-up, Jake and Stevie (Ronnie Gene Blevins), are deep in the forests of West Virginia. They meet the quietly threatening Tony (Skipp Sudduth) who lives in the forest, and his daughter Jessie (Jessi Blue Gormezano). As the two friends hunting monsters, not a huge amount happens. This is a slow burner, despite wasting no time in setting up the premise. But if you're happy with that - and I am - this is worth your time.The acting is very naturalistic. You really believe these two are good friends. So when their footage appears to be tampered with, and the Blair-Witchy-woodlands behave strangely, it is effective. Most potent, however, is the child-like screaming of whatever is 'out there'.Whilst the ending is disappointing, I enjoyed this for the most part. It is strange to once more glance at reviews and see the marks given for 'Dark Forest' 10 out of 10 and plenty of praise, or 1 out of 10 for the obligatory 'worst film I have ever seen' nonsense. The truth as I see it, is about halfway between the two.

The Hunted is another addition to the "lost footage found" genre but unfortunately it's not one of the better ones, and while Josh Stewart's directorial debut isn't THAT bad, it just falls short of the mark of being an entertaining film.The film has a decent, yet simple, story to it. Jake (Stewart) and his cameraman friend & colleague, Stevie, are out in the woods for three days & nights filming for their new deer hunting TV show, and on the 1st night they both hear a noise that sounds eerily like a woman's scream. Brushing it off as a bobcats yowl, they go back to filming, but by the 3rd and final night, things have intensified.Like I said, it's a simple story really, but the majority of these types of films do have simple story's. What tends to carry them along is the way that the story is told, and that's where The Hunted falls short unfortunately because for the majority of the movie, it's actually pretty slow & boring and doesn't pick up until the last 20 minutes or so which is a pity because if the previous hour was as decent as the end then it would have been a much better film.The cast members do an OK job with what they have to work with and while Stewart was excellent in The Collector, here he just seems a bit, I don't know, subdued maybe possibly due to a limited script.One thing I will say about the movie is that the screams you hear in it are creepy as hell. Some people may find the screaming annoying or rather ridiculous, but the way the screams come across, especially when they come nearer to where Jake & Stevie are camping, is very eerie. I just wish Stewart had managed to script in something else to capitalise on the screams to take it to the next level.Altogether, The Hunted isn't that bad of a movie to watch, as I said earlier, especially with it being a low-budget production. Just wish that there was a bit more to it.

Reminiscent of the classic Deer Hunter. What a crazy horror show ! The excitement is palpable. The shrieking in the woods from some ghostly apparition is scary as hell. Lol. It's also visually stunning. The woods and the crisp dewy air. It all comes together to create an amazingly intense atmosphere. So what is this apparition. Sounds like a ghost of a girl who was raped and tortured in those woods or something. One thing's for sure...it was no bobcat. The bobcat they found dead though, that just confuses the situation. They see the big buck at last, but he can't shoot it because it moves just out of range. Their eye is on the prize they keep getting antagonized by this restless spirit in the woods. I will leave the suspense to unfold.

I just finished watching this, and it was actually pretty good. Yeah, it's a found footage movie, and a lot of people do a pathetic job on these types of films, plus the market tends to be a bit over-saturated with them. Josh Stewart (The Walking Dead webisodes) wrote, directed and starred in this. Generally when somebody slaps their name all over a low-budget movie, it comes out more as a school project than anything worth watching. Not this time.It's about two guys - Jake and Stevie - who go into an unexplored area of a forest to film them hunting a big buck by the name of Movie Star. They spend three days and nights in the forest that is owned by a guy named Tony, who also owns the hunting lodge where they stay. From the first night, they hear a horrific scream that sounds like a woman, but they put it off to being a bobcat. A girl who works at the hunting lodge tells Stevie a ghost story of the area. A few things happen in the woods before that which makes Stevie take the situation very seriously, and he no longer believes it's a bobcat that is screaming in the pitch of night.Jake, wanting to get enough footage for a 22-minute show, does not want to believe any sort of ghost is haunting the area, so he resists Stevie's opinion, until it becomes apparent that it's true. I can't tell anymore without giving away spoilers.There are no special effects in this film, nor are there any pathetic looking monsters. It was made in a serious, realistic type manner, and I have to applaud the filmmakers for not getting wrapped up in trying to insert special effects into the story when they were not needed.I wasn't expecting much from this at all, but it was well worth a viewing, possibly more. With October right around the corner, I'm in need of well-done horror movies. This is certainly in that category. I know a lot of you are sick of found footage films, especially the ones done poorly and filmed only through camcorders. This is not like that. A little bit of it is filmed via camcorder, but most of it is filmed like a regular movie.I gave this a 7-star rating because the acting, writing, and directing were very good. The setting is not original, because it does take place in the forest, like most found footage films. However, the writer cared enough about the audience's view of the characters that he only had two people go into the woods, unlike many other found footage films where they send in 6 or more characters with no development. I felt these two characters were good friends, and...Oops! Almost gave away a spoiler. lol. Anyway, watch it yourself and see. I recommend it.