Night of the Hunted

Starring:Brigitte Lahaie, Vincent GardÃ¨re, Dominique Journet, Bernard Papineau, Rachel Mhas, Catherine Greiner, Nathalie Perrey, Christiane Farina, VÃ©ronique DÃ©laissÃ©, Cyril Val, Jean HÃ©rel, Jacques Gall, Dominique Saint-Cyr, Gregoire Cherlian, Jean Cherlian, Alain Duclos, Alain Plumey, Jacques Gateau
Director: Jean Rollin
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Euro-horror cult director Jean Rollin dives into science fiction with an ultra-low-budget picture that resembles nothing less than Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor by way of David Cronenberg. Though it starts out in classic horror fantasy fashion, with a beautiful young woman (Rollin regular Brigitte Lahaie) in a flimsy nightgown rushing breathlessly though a dark forest, the imagery quickly changes tone when she is returned to the mysterious, antiseptic skyscraper asylum known as "Black Tower." Blank-eyed inmates with dissipated memories wander through the featureless white hallways and empty rooms, helpfully making up stories for one another to stand in for their lost pasts. Like in most of Rollin's films, the story is more fascinating before the exposition and explanations, when the ambiguous conspiracies and the stark landscapes create an unsettling, alienated world out of time and place. The wooden acting is transformed into an asset, a dazed cast of shuffling living zombies somewhere between shock and stupor slowly losing their minds. In true Rollin fashion, he takes time out for gratuitous sex scenes and nudity and weaves a disconnected series of gory murders into a story that never really makes sense in the first place, but the ethereal, poetic imagery creates an enigmatic psychodrama more concerned with mood and texture than narrative. The new Redemption release restores two scenes cut by the producers for its theatrical release. The DVD features the theatrical trailer and a gallery of production stills. --Sean Axmaker
Description
Stylish, futuristically surreal and a departure from director Jean Rollin's familiar vampire territory, "The Night of the Hunted" features a mass of people suffering with insanity and collective amnesia. Bizarre, even by Rollin's standards, it still displays fairy tale qualities mixed with extremes of sadism, sex and violence. Restored from the original negative.

The Zombie Collection (The Living Dead Girl / The Reincarnation of Isabel / The Night of the Hunted)
Average customer rating:

Euro-horror

The Zombie Collection (The Living Dead Girl / The Reincarnation of Isabel / The Night of the Hunted)
Starring: Marina Pierro , Françoise Blanchard , Mike Marshall , Carina Barone , and Fanny Magier
Director: Jean Rollin , and Renato Polselli
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000C23H2
Release Date: 2003-10-07

Customer Reviews:

Euro-horror.......2004-03-05

I desperately wanted to try one of these euro-horror films that are so highly regarded by many, so I decided to splurge and buy this set rather than just one or two of them(which cost a lot more individually than in this 3-pack). Trying to find reviews for these films were very difficult so I thought I'd try to help those out that are curious about these films too. All films are english subtitled, supposedly uncut, and in their original theatrical aspect ratios. So here we go:

Living Dead Girl--i've read this is considered Jean Rollin's best film. I can't vouch for that, but it is pretty good. Some girl comes back to life after a chemical accident and needs blood to stay 'alive' which her best friend provides for her. It has decent performances and decent pacing(it was kinda slow, but i didn't get really bored at any point), but it wasn't very scary or erotic(no major sex/love scene, the lesbian relationship is only hinted at). It is rather bloody but not really too gory. (trailer, filmography, mini-gallery)

Reincarnation of Isabel--Poorly made film about some girl being killed because she was accused of being a witch. She comes back later to seek vengeance on those that killed her(i think, it's slightly confusing). Anyway, there is a decent sleaze factor in this one, but again, no major sex scene(more like a few major 'tease' scenes). Also has very little atmosphere, no real scares or blood, gore, etc. In fact, if it weren't for the sleaze factor, this would be kinda hard to sit through(would make for a good MST3K episode though). (no extras worth mentioning)

Night of the Hunted--atmospherically surreal Jean Rollin film. Plot has something to do with some 'patients' in a high rise losing their memory due to some 'illness' and two of the girls trying to escape. I've read reviews complaining it's too confusing and extremely cheap looking. The sets are sparse, but it adds to the surreal nature of the proceedings(besides, who's to say these rooms don't naturally look this way). As for the confusion, it's not really confusing at all mainly because one character in the film explans almost everything at the end of the movie(if it's still confusing...it's because of the holes in the script). The film is not really scary, bloody(ok,one scene), or gory; disturbing, intriguing, and weird are more appropriate. As for the sex, there's an extended love scene, a rape scene, and a brief sex-turns-deadly scene. The extras say there is a trailer(there is), and two "strong, previously unseen sex scenes". These two must've been incorporated into the film, cause i saw no option to view them separately on the menu screen.

Amazon.com

Euro-horror cult director Jean Rollin dives into science fiction with an ultra-low-budget picture that resembles nothing less than Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor by way of David Cronenberg. Though it starts out in classic horror fantasy fashion, with a beautiful young woman (Rollin regular Brigitte Lahaie) in a flimsy nightgown rushing breathlessly though a dark forest, the imagery quickly changes tone when she is returned to the mysterious, antiseptic skyscraper asylum known as "Black Tower." Blank-eyed inmates with dissipated memories wander through the featureless white hallways and empty rooms, helpfully making up stories for one another to stand in for their lost pasts. Like in most of Rollin's films, the story is more fascinating before the exposition and explanations, when the ambiguous conspiracies and the stark landscapes create an unsettling, alienated world out of time and place. The wooden acting is transformed into an asset, a dazed cast of shuffling living zombies somewhere between shock and stupor slowly losing their minds. In true Rollin fashion, he takes time out for gratuitous sex scenes and nudity and weaves a disconnected series of gory murders into a story that never really makes sense in the first place, but the ethereal, poetic imagery creates an enigmatic psychodrama more concerned with mood and texture than narrative. The new Redemption release restores two scenes cut by the producers for its theatrical release. The DVD features the theatrical trailer and a gallery of production stills. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Stylish, futuristically surreal and a departure from director Jean Rollin's familiar vampire territory, "The Night of the Hunted" features a mass of people suffering with insanity and collective amnesia. Bizarre, even by Rollin's standards, it still displays fairy tale qualities mixed with extremes of sadism, sex and violence. Restored from the original negative.

Customer Reviews:

Good, but not as good as Rollins' other works.......2006-05-28

At first, "The Night of The Hunted" seems to be nothing more than an excuse for a lot of skin and sex scenes; however, the film progresses to be truly eerie and unsettling in some instances, with a rather bittersweet, plaintative, and thoughtful ending.

As usual, there is prototypical cast of Rollin characters, with the talented Lahaie playing the protagonist very well. My only complaint is the inclusion of the female "patient" who becomes too quickly attached to Lahaie, as these types of leechlike women feature prominently in Rollins' films and often seem an unnecessary inclusion. Well, I don't want to give the plot away, but I would only recommend this film is you are a Rollin completist. Those who don't like "weird" or offbeat films are surely to dislike this one. To those who have never viewed a Rollin film, start with "Fascination."

Fun, but silly........2006-03-13

Night of the Hunted (Jean Rollin,1980)

So I've had my first Jean Rollin experience. I have been told by a number of people that it's nowhere near his best film. I hope not, but I have to say, I didn't hate it that much; there's just not much to wrap one's head around here, so it comes out more like gory softcore than horror, thriller, or mystery. Rollin did, however, get the softcore aspect of it right.

Robert (Once Upon an Angel's Alain Duclos) is driving home one night when he spies a young woman, clad only in a nightgown, running alongside a dark road. She turns out to be Elysabeth (the stunning Brigitte Lahaie, probably best known in America for Henry and June). He takes her back to his apartment in Paris, and finds that she has no memory. He goes off to work, and just after he leaves, Elysabeth is taken off to a place called the Black Tower by Dr. Francis (Bernard Papineau of This Beast Must Die). Much of the rest of the movie deals with Elysabeth's stay in the tower, though Robert does put in a cameo towards the end of the film.

There is a decent amount of simulated sex, though the video box's boast that the movie features "two strong sex scenes presented here for the first time" makes me shudder to think how tame the movie must have been when it was released; there are, in fact, only three sex scenes that could be characterized as middling, much less strong. There is also a decent amount of violence. There is nothing at all else to recommend this film. One expects bad acting in a B movie, but this is atrocious. Lahaie manages a good line now and then, as does the even more beautiful Dominique Journet (later seen in La Traviata), but most of their performances are predictably wooden. Papineau plays like a stereotype of the evil doctor thinking he's doing God's work, but one in the middle of an asthma attack. The rest of the patients are such woodenly stereoptypical crazies that they make the infected folks in Cronenberg's Shivers look like complex, well-drawn characters.

Still, if all you're looking for is sex and inventive ways to kill people-- which is, really, what exploitation flicks are all about-- Night of the Hunted is an amusing little side journey. If you want substance, however, reach for a Dario Argento movie. **

A poem of the pulp imagination.......2005-12-12

Set in the near future and taking place in an eerily desolate Paris, Night of the Hunted centers on Elisabeth (hauntingly played by Brigitte Lahaie), a young woman who is suffering from a bizarre form of amnesia; she can only remember the present and once an experience ends, it leaves her mind as well. As she herself explains it early on, Elisabeth is doomed to live eternally in the moment. However, she is not alone in her affliction. She lives in a "Black Tower" with several others also cursed to live continually in the moment. Though she is supposedly under the treatment of a coldly impersonal Doctor and his sinister aide, Solange, Elisabeth is really more of a prisoner than a patient. When Elisabeth finally manages to escape the tower, she is picked up by a young man named Robert and promptly forgets just where and from what she escaped. After spending the night with Robert, she is recaptured by the doctor and Solange and taken back to the tower. She promptly forgets Robert as well but Robert doesn't forget her and his attempts to find and rescue her eventually lead the film to its truly tragic conclusion.

This deceptively low-key French film has been unjustly maligned by many critics over the years and, indeed, it is a flawed film. With the exception of Lahaie, the acting is uniformly wooden and the film's low budget is, at times, painfully apparent. However, underneath its undeniably crude and, at times, rather sleazy surface, Night of the Hunted boasts a wealth of treasure for the discriminating filmgoer. As directed by the great (if undeniably idiosyncratic) French filmmaker Jean Rollin, Night of the Hunted is a haunting meditation on the importance of memory and the horrors of living with no individual identity. In the scenes in which Elisabeth and her fellow patients/prisoners struggle to comprehend the few fragments of their past that they have left and basically create new fictional memories to replace the reality that they have left, Rollin manages to achieve a truly graceful sense of melancholy poignance. Those that have criticized this film for its occasionally graphic violence and sex tend to ignore the fact that, as opposed to other more acclaimed mainstream films, every one of those scenes can be seen as a logical result of the story Rollin weaves. It is proof of Rollin's talent that he takes scenes that could have easily been laughable and kitschy in the hands of other directors and manages to make them actually quite affecting. Indeed, the film's final sequence is probably one of the most truly sad (though not necessarily depressing) to have ever been captured on film and both the sequence and everything that it implies stays with the viewer long after the film has ended. Night of the Hunted stands as strong evidence that Jean Rollin is truly a poet of the pulp imagination. It is an underrated, uncommon film; one designed to be appreciated by the uncommon viewer.

another great rollin masterpiece.......2003-09-16

if you're looking for something strange that will hold your attention & keep you glued to the screen until the living end, you just might be ready for night of the hunted. rollin's great masterpiece will leave you shaking your head in disbelief but never fails to amaze & excite. those of you gore hounds who just seek out some blood & guts, you will probably find more with his endeavor living dead girl. there is some blood here but the atmosphere is what will grab you & shake you. in the chilling tradition of eyes wide shut or memento, rollin gives you the full effect of paranoia & loss of memory. the film does make sense contrary to what many have wrote here but you have to view this film carefully & look for the hints. in the end, night of the hunted reveals it's dark secrets & the ending is sure to burn it's way into your thoughts for a long time. although we find no vampires here, it's evident that rollin is a serious director & treats his subject matter here with greatest of care. this film will not appeal to folks who tend to avoid pyschological horror or explicit sex. as with most rollin films, night of the hunted isn't intended for all audiences. the film start out with a young girl in a flimsy gown walking in the woods & then a flash of carlights stops her dead in her tracks. the guy naturally picks the girl up & offers to take her home but she can't remember who she is or where home is. in the next scenes, we see she's been taken back to this mysterious tower by a strange man & woman where it seems everyone has lost their mind or they are in the process of losing their minds. here we find a sad building of people struggling to make sense out of the world they are living in or their confusing lives. to provide comfort or security to one another, they invent stories to take the place of non-existent memories. eventually, our lead character tries to escape again & then things really start to get tangled. great rollin film that has nothing to do with the creatures of the night or the immortals.

Static psychological horror........2001-11-10

This excellent film deviates from Rollin's vampire obsession in favour of a "parnanoid" tale of urban horror. There isn't much action, but the plot is unnerving.

At times, it seems like Rollin is doing a fine imitation of the early Cronenberg (RABID and SHIVERS come to mind).

As with other REDEMPTION DVD's, this lacks any interesting extras. But again, as with all the Rollin films in this series, the print is of the best quality.

A quirky film that should not be missed.

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