Fantasy Horror: The Head Hunter starring Christopher Rygh

With all the hullabaloo over Avengers: Endgame in the cinemas (you did catch it on IMAX right...right?) and the last season of Game of Thrones on television, I thought I just drop a note on this low- (or mid?) budget fantasy horror film called The Head Hunter.

Having seen bigger budget fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings and so-so ones like The Seventh Son, The Head Hunter is a refreshing take on the fantasy genre focusing on just one dude, played by Christopher Rygh. Having lost his daughter to some devilish looking bad guys (and I don't mean this guy, I mean really horrible orc-faced wraith-like zombified meanies), the Head Hunter has to follow his king/lord/whoever's-upstairs' orders to take down one meanie at a time.

Directed and co-written by Jordan Downey (the other writer is Kevin Stewart), with screechy and melancholy (and often quite loud if you put on headphones) soundtrack by Nick Soole, The Head Hunter is an engrossing film with very modest locales (quite a lot of time is spent in his humble cottage concocting stuff), minimal complexity (near-zero dialog except some one-way talk with his horse) but deep threads of Viking-esque/Skyrim vibes. So most of the film is really about the hero/anti-hero's mind game with himself as he fulfills the orders and takes the heads of one bad meanie after one bad meanie, hoping one day he can exact revenge on the very bad meanie who took his daughter's life (played surreptitiously by Cora Kaufman) and redeem himself as a failed daddy-o.

It is often rare that we get a fantasy film that's moody, melancholic, Skyrim-esque and satisfying. My only gripe is with the ending, which is kinda abrupt but not all together unexpected. Could have been stretched a little and made it a little more high stakes/high drama-ish. Anyway, that aside, if you can, catch it and add it to your bed-head collection....geddit? Geddit? Rotten Tomatoes gave it 100% (out of 5 reviewers) and it has a 5.1/10 on IMDB.

Did somebody miss Skyrim a little too much?

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