Hunter's Blood (1986)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Pull on your dungarees, git yourself some moonshine, and curl up with yer sister on the couch: it's backwoods terror time! Five 'city boys', on a hunting trip in the wilds of Arkansas, end up being hunted themselves after running into a group of inbred poachers who don't take too kindly to strangers—especially Yankees.All right, Hunter's Blood may not be all that original, utilising the standard 'backwoods' plot line that has served so many films well in the past (and since). But with a pretty solid cast (including Sam Bottoms, Clu Galager, and Ken Swofford), well paced direction, great dialogue, and some juicy gore, it still manages to be a gripping experience.Director Robert C. Hughes doesn't rush proceedings, taking time to carefully develop his characters before the killing begins. We get to see how the hunters interact with each other, and develop an understanding of their personalities. None of the men are portrayed as saints: even Bottoms' nice-guy intern doctor, David Rand, has a laugh at a barmaid's expense (when the boys stop at a bar to stock up on brews).Of course, even though the group unwisely mock the locals, they don't quite deserve what happens to them once they begin their hunting trip proper.The unsavoury poachers soon make their presence known, interrupting the guys at their campsite and causing trouble, until tough old-timer Mason (Galager) sends them packing. Mason also gets in a spot of bother when the hunters accidentally stumble upon the poachers at work, and gets in a vicious scrap with Snake, a slimy looking redneck played by Billy Drago.Fortunately, as things start to get really nasty, a pair of cops on horseback turn up and arrest the back-woods scum, handcuffing them together and leading them away. However, the bad guys soon manage to escape (after their kin ambush and kill the lawmen) and set out to teach the interferin' city boys a lesson.From here-on in, things get very nasty. The hunters stumble upon the gruesome remains of the cops (a carved up corpse and a severed head), and realise that they are in deep trouble. Their hunting trip has turned into a fight for survival.What follows is a tense, action packed slice of survivalist cinema that delivers plenty of nice 'n' nasty scenes of violence (including a great shotgun blast to the face), which is only weakened slightly by opting to have David's pretty wife Melanie (Kim Delaney) turn up to join in the 'fun' (a rather unbelievable, unnecessary and unwelcome plot turn, in my opinion).7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Hunters Blood (1987) is a very entertaining fast paced movie about 5 men from the city who travel 2 hours to Arkansas on a weekend so they can go hunting in the forest, drink beer and have fun!!! Things soon take a turn for the worse tho when they find out that there's a horrible redneck family who live in the area where they set up camp. These inbred rednecks are cannibalistic and will stop at nothing to torture and kill our city boys!! Hunters Blood is a great movie with plenty of action, some really gory images along the way and the cast do a fantastic job, Mason is my favourite, he's played by Clu Gulager but i'm being biased because he was great in "Return of the living dead".I highly recommend this rare horror movie, if you enjoyed "Deliverance" and "Rituals" then you should love this one, this movie gets a well deserved 8/10 from me.

Five macho but supposedly civilized men take off to the unexplored Arkansas woods to do some old-fashioned deer hunting. There they encounter a bunch of aggressive and large-scale poachers that don't really appreciate strangers trespassing their business. After a couple of banal showdowns follows a truly violent and merciless hunting contest that'll demand many lives! This rather unknown and underrated 80's exploitation movie opens rather slow and ordinary, with redundant speeches about manhood and the art of deer-hunting, but the exciting and genuinely suspenseful hunting sequences during the last half hour widely make up for this. This cool 80's gem has perhaps stolen its storyline and most essential moments from classic blockbusters like "Deliverance" and "the Deer Hunter", but the raw violence and effective shocks are director Hughes' very own merit. The film contains a couple of very graphic make-up effects, like a stabbing through the neck and a very eerie close-up shotgun killing. Many 80's horror movies feature undistinguished (to say the least) Southern folks as unhinged killers and the cast members of "Hunter's Blood" definitely belong to the most successfully menacing Rednecks ever. The filming locations are very impressive and even the photography is surprisingly professional. Keep also an eye open for Billy Bob Thornton in a very small role as background redneck. Recommended!

Great movie! Yes, it's a knock-off of "Deliverance" (good movie also), but this movie is worth your while. It has hunting, a bunch of Southern stereotypes (...like Oklahoma, where these guys are supposed to be from, is so urbane!), Clu Gallagher, Billy Bob Thornton (watch for him falling out of the pickup truck--NOT SURE IF THAT'S A SPOILER OR NOT?), Sam Bottoms (of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" fame--my very favorite movie, by the way), plus Kim Delaney (pre-"NYPD Blue")! Oh, and Joey Travolta...Big John's brother! Can you ask for a better cast in a "B" movie? I especially like the early scenes before they actually get to the camp site. The bbq/bar scene is especially good--I love to quote that one!. But, who forgets "brew" on a hunting trip..?