Directed by Kyle Kauwika Harris and written by Steven Jon Whritner, based on the novel by Judith Sanders. When an ICU nurse volunteers to help a coma patient accused of murdering six women, he’s drawn into a chilling web of lies, obsession, and deadly secrets as a detective races to stop the killer. Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Garret Dillahunt, Elizabeth Mitchell, Jessy Schram and Todd Jenkins.
Starting things off with a theatrical serial killer who has a penchant for staging their victims is unfortunately a misdirect or a little bit of a bait and switch for what The Huntsman ultimately is. There’s no real chase or investigation, it’s one man ingratiating himself into the family of an alleged killer, in search of some answers, but he does quite little searching, or poking and prodding of the family to try and elicit them. It also feels like early on it implies that Jessy Schram’s Detective Darby is going to be a bigger part of the story than she actually is, again framing it like a criminal investigation, which it can’t live up to.
Unfortunately, it was an inescapably disappointing direction for the story to take. There was plenty of potential for something sinister, to create a game of fighting against the clock to discover the killer but Kyle Kauwika Harris and Steven Jon Whritner don’t quite achieve that. In fairness, there is one element of the story that aligns with that (without going into detail to avoid spoilers), but it feels poorly used. What viewers get instead is a slow burn thriller, basically a waiting game of when the killer will trip up and reveal themselves. There’s a lot of emphasis on the atmosphere, rather than the plot itself, and that can work in some cases, but sadly they’re also using rather two-dimensional characters so it can’t sustain itself well enough.
Part of why it could work is the tension is definitely there, the direction is nothing exciting, but it works and the cinematography has a good dark influence to it. However, the biggest reason is the performances because this is a well-chosen cast and they had more to give than The Huntsman is giving them the space for. Particularly Elizabeth Mitchell who gets to expand beyond her usual role for something seductive, curious and with a little mystery. Shawn Ashmore leads the story well, he makes Max easy to sympathise with. Even though the direction does weirdly try to heavy-handedly frame him with an edge of the sinister, which was not well thought out. Garret Dillahunt keeps you guessing which is always a good factor to have in the mix, he doesn’t pigeonhole this character or overplay his hand, which a lesser actor certainly would have.
The Huntsman has a decent concept but feels like it was probably a much better book than a film. There was a lot of potential for something more twisting and turning, darker and insidious, but the finished product doesn’t have that. It’s a slow-burn and doesn’t have enough to offer to keep things going, or to keep you from guessing exactly where it is going. It’s decently made, and there’s a good cast so a great deal more could have been done with this, but ultimately it’s too familiar and fairly mediocre.
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