One reviewer noted that the sleeve of the UK edition states the film is one part Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and one part Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. He is boggled with how the latter relates to the film at all. The back of my sleeve reads that Headhunter is “Rosemary’s Baby meets [A] Nightmare on Elm Street in the office from Hell.” Likewise, I am boggled as to how the latter relates to the film at all. Yes, we have a haunted personage who wields an ax during the film and a woman who houses the seed of the Dark One (filmmaker’s terms) within her. The other critic supposes that Ben’s hunting for answers to an unjust death is Headhunter’s missing link to The Ring while I am chalking up the NOES comparison on the basis that Headhunter revolves around a ghost seeking vengeance. However, obviously the references threw both of us in that when a movie is stated as being a mixture of “this” and “that,” the “this and that” should be somewhat equally representative of the production’s contents and not vastly disproportional, forcing a reviewer to actively engage his or her imagination and waste this much time on something other than the film proper. Perhaps this gives you an idea of how well put together Paul Tarantino’s movie is . . .
Insurance salesman Ben Causo (Benjamin John Parrillo) is told by a client, Doug Bennet (Mark Aiken), of a headhunter–a corporate personnel recruiter–named Sarah Tierney (Kristi Clainos) who might be able to advance his career. After a short visit with Sarah, she contacts him with his dream job–75K a year, full benefits, and three weeks paid vacation–with only one catch, that is, the position is during the graveyard shift. However, as soon as he appears at his new job, he finds that the office is haunted and has only a few days to locate the severed head of his employer, lest he remain in office hell for eternity.
The first thing one notices about Tarantino’s film is that it is virtually devoid of a soundtrack. Now, considering the subgenre that we are working within, this might not be as much of a problem as, say, a mute musical. However, Tarantino inadvertently admits that this aspect of his work is due to his budgetary constraints when, midway through the film, we are blasted with what I will refer to as a brief, yet dominating, superhero interlude (i.e. “dum-da-da-daw!”) before retreating back into auditory calm. Thus, we can surmise, the would-be appropriate void that we would(n’t) be confronted with upon entering a vacated office building is, sigh, to be merely written off as coincidence more than astute directorial judgment.
Equally coincidental is the premise itself as we are approached with what appears to be a black humor theme involving a character who finds himself caught up in a literally ad infinitum job with a boss who has, equally literal, lost her head. Yet, as with the soundtrack, one is forced to consent that this eyebrow-raising irony is more than likely a happy happenstance because of how the plot is executed and the film presented.
In short, the acting is slightly stiff as it is more off-again more than it is on-again as the viewer finds him or herself leaning to and fro attempting to move around the obtrusive shadows that plague the picture as Seth Kotok’s cinematography adds yet another level of visual challenges for Tarantino’s audience. By the end of the production, I was left with the impression that if the filmmakers would have dedicated as much time and effort to the film as a whole as they allotted the makeup effects and the sex scene, Headhunter wouldn’t have deprived me of an hour-and-a-half of my life.
Granted, Paul Tarantino’s Headhunter tries, but not very hard. About the most that can be said for the picture is that we are issued a hand caught in a garbage disposal, which I hadn’t seen in quite some time as I wisely invested the remainder of the film reminiscing and attempting to recall all of the movies I’d seen with such scenes while Tarantino even closed the potentially intriguing door of possibility of whether or not his central character is insane or literally haunted, i.e. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, thus proving once again that the sleeve to UK edition of the film is less succinct than we might have originally believed.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
