Truly Dreadful Film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

One can always depend on French cult filmmaker Jean Rollin to come up with something bizarre and different -- and this quirky excursion into sci-fi territory certainly fits that particular outre bill quite nicely. The gorgeous Brigitte Lahaie delivers a fine and affecting performance as Elysabeth, a young woman who has been stricken with a peculiar mental disorder that's causing her to slowly, but surely lose both her identity and memories. Elysabeth finds herself trapped in an oppressive high-rise clinic building with a bunch of other people suffering from the same malady.Rollin relates the intriguing premise at a deliberate pace, ably crafts a compelling enigmatic mood, wrings a good deal of pathos from the offbeat premise (the final image in particular is simply heartbreaking), makes good use of cold urban structures and landscapes, astutely captures the existential horror of being reduced to a mindless vegetable state, and, naturally, doesn't skimp on either the yummy female nudity or arousing soft-core sex. The sound acting by the capable cast holds everything together: Ravishing redhead Dominique Journet as the forlorn Veronique, Vincent Gardere as the smitten Robert, Bernard Papineau as the chilly Dr. Francis, Rachel Mhas as equally aloof assistant Solange, and Cathy Stewart as the needy Catherine. Kudos are also in order for Philippe Brejean's droning electronic score and Jean-Claude Couty's stark, yet still stunning cinematography. An interesting curio.

Even if you're a fan of Jean Rollin's idiosyncratic body of work, you will be caught off guard by this exceptional foray into science fiction territory. For once, there's not a single diaphanously gowned vampire girl in sight ! True to tradition, the budget proved way too tight to realize the director's vision entirely. Yet this is largely compensated by his obvious love of genre cinema, dedication to his craft and sheer ingenuity. Jean-Claude Couty's atmospheric cinematography makes the most of the foreboding locations and Philippe Bréjean (a/k/a "Gary Sandeur") contributes a startling soundtrack that fortunately doesn't resemble any of the sappy stuff he composed for hardcore.Shot in and around a Paris office block before and after working hours, the film was largely cast with porn regulars Rollin was already quite familiar with from his "Michel Gentil" cash-gathering XXX efforts, most notably French f*ck film royalty Brigitte Lahaie in the demanding lead. Playing Elisabeth (rather well, I might add), she's picked up wandering a nearby highway one night by Robert (Vincent Gardère), driving home at the end of a long work day. Barely able to piece together the string of events that got her there, Elisabeth seems to lose her memories mere moments after events occur, even forgetting Robert's name and heroic savior role before their night flight comes to an end at his apartment. Prior to making love, she rightfully describes herself as a virgin (further credit to Brigitte's thespian skills that she can handle the line so convincingly, being after all one of the more active adult actresses of the '70s) because she cannot recall a single touch preceding his. Because of this nifty bit of context, the relatively long sex scene that follows totally eschews the gratuity of other "commercial" interludes Rollin has had to include in other works to assure funding.When Robert leaves for work, he's inevitably erased from Elisabeth's feeble mind. A mysterious doctor (comedian Bernard Papineau effectively cast against type) and his menacing assistant Solange (striking porn starlet Rachel Mhas) move in on her during her protector's absence and take her back to the place she turns out to have escaped from. Here we get one of the movie's strongest scenes as she's re-introduced to her roommate Catherine (the late Cathérine Greiner a/k/a hardcore performer "Cathy Stewart" in a quietly devastating turn), both girls desperately supplying fictitious shared "memories" for one another in a bid to outrun their inevitable fate. That deterioration is not solely limited to the mind becomes painfully clear when they are served lunch and Catherine's unable to control her movements in trying to eat a spoonful of soup. It's also Catherine who gets to voice the filmmaker's compromise with the demands of commerce as she urges Elisabeth to get naked and hold her because sex is all they have left now that both mind and physical faculties have deserted them.Several rather explicit - if not quite hardcore - sex scenes make up the movie's mid-section and French porn aficionados should recognize the likes of Alain Plumey (a/k/a "Cyril Val"), Jacques Gateau and Elodie Delage, along with a blink and miss bit from future porno princess Marilyn Jess whose rape at the hands, mouth and member of Plumey was only present in the film's rarely screened XXX version FILLES TRAQUEES. The pivotal part of Véronique, a girl Elisabeth almost seems to remember and whom she seeks to escape anew with, is beautifully handled by the exquisite Dominique Journet - in her unforgettable debut - who would go on to play a sizable supporting role in Franco Zeffirelli's LA TRAVIATA. The six feet under ending reveals the deteriorating condition to be the result of a nuclear spill, the quarantined "patients" ultimately leaving a barely breathing empty shell, unceremoniously disposed off in a fiery furnace. The final shot offers a particularly heartbreaking variation on that of Chaplin's MODERN TIMES as Elisabeth, approaching complete meltdown by now, and a wounded Robert stumble along the railroad bridge, clumsily clasping each other's outstretched hands.

Early on in the movie a man named Robert (Vincent Gardere) picks up a stranger on the side of the road. Yes, she is blond and beautiful and I'm sure that helped her get a ride. And as it turns out our good Samaritan Robert has hit the jackpot as once her gets her home (he takes her there because she has no memory and doesn't know where she lives) he scores some of the quickest a** in the history of cinema. Oh, did I mention this is a French film? I guess I really didn't have to, as us Americans, prudes that we are, are far too restrained to ever open a film like that. And me, being in the camp that you can never have too many French films, nor can you have too much sex on screen, had a blast watching "The Night of the Hunted." It does take place in something of an alternate reality where everybody carries guns and nobody wears underwear (and who wouldn't want to live in this reality), but that works to its advantage. For better or for worse the sex does feel downright pornified and if there is a female character you will see her breasts.But perhaps I've gotten ahead of myself. The plot, post-aforementioned sex scene, involves Elizabeth being brought back to a diabolical mental ward where she shares a living space with others who share her Memento-like syndrome. Her memory has deteriorated to the point where she often times forgets what happened just a few minutes prior. She wanders around the minimalist set that looks stolen from an Off Off Broadway production (and the music is no more elaborate) while men and women hit on her. The janitor, realizing the upside to this situation, sets off to turn their disadvantage into his own sexual advantage. That, of course, goes terribly wrong for him, and Elizabeth, realizing there is something terribly wrong with the entire world she is living in, sets off on a quest to escape. After enlisting the help of Robert, her and her friend Veronique dash through the halls of the mental hospital from hell.The film is filled with sex and violence, but it is not there just to entice the masses. The doctor who presides over this pit of despair has sucked the life out of most of his patients/prisoners. Sex and violence becomes an outlet for these people, something that makes them feel alive. I will admit though, I was left scratching my head over what this film was trying to say. Near the end they began to lean heavily on Nazi imagery and I wonder if it wasn't trying to indict doctors and science in general through the Third Reich. Nazi's made fantastic scientific discoveries, but most would say that it came at the price of humanity. The doctor here was also aiming for a great discovery, but the byproduct of that was having to discard bodies into incinerators. This all sounds like a very unsentimental view of humanity, and it is, but it is very effective at searing its images into your brain. The film is weird, but not off putting. French filmmakers have always felt comfortable using surrealism and here is no exception. It may not be a masterpiece, but for fans of unique cinema it is a can't miss. ***1/4

'Night Of The Hunted' has been slammed in the other comments posted here to date, which I find hard to understand. While the movie isn't one of Jean Rollin's best it is far from worthless. The stunning Brigitte Lahaie, star of Rollin's vampire classic 'Fascination', plays a beautiful amnesiac befriended by a passing motorist. She is in a state of panic and trying to escape somebody, but we don't know who, and neither does she. She is subsequently recaptured by a man who claims to be a doctor and is returned to a mysterious apartment block cum hospital. In there are other similarly afflicted patients, or are they prisoners? The movie is slow and puzzling and will probably appeal more to fans of J.G. Ballard or Kobo Abe than those of conventional SF or horror movies. The Cronenberg comparisons it has been given aren't exactly on the money but give some idea that this isn't your average b-grade thriller, and it is even odd for Rollin, not exactly a conventional film maker at the best of times. I say ignore 'Night Of The Hunted's flaws and you'll be in for a fascinating, if not completely satisfying, experience.