WarHunt
"WarHunt" feels like The Asylum's rendition of the J.J. Abrams-produced "Overlord."
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The Asylum is a studio that releases direct-to-video riffs on much more popular movies. “Transformers” got “Transmorphers.” “The Day the Earth Stood Still” got “The Day the Earth Stopped.” “Battleship” got “American Warships.” “WarHunt” (available in select theaters and on VOD beginning Friday, Jan. 21) isn’t an Asylum production, but it sure as shit feels like a spin on the J.J. Abrams-produced “Overlord” from a few years back.
It’s 1945 in Germany. A U.S. military aircraft crash lands in the Black Forest behind enemy lines after colliding with a murder of crows that’d make Sully Sullenberger blush. The eye-patched Maj. Johnson (Mickey Rourke) sends a squadron of soldiers led by Sgt. Brewer (Robert Knepper) to retrieve sensitive information that was aboard the plane and rescue survivors if there are any. A highly-skilled intelligence officer named Walsh (Jackson Rathbone) joins Brewer’s crew at Johnson’s behest and to the Sarge’s consternation.
The platoon is in a rush to arrive at the crash site prior to the Nazis. Turns out they needn’t have worried as exsanguinated “Jerries” are strung up in the trees. The lone surviving Nazi (Rihards Lepers) claims that his comrades were laid to waste by a coven of witches (embodied by Lou Stassen and Anna Paliga). Brewer dismisses the German’s declaration as balderdash while Walsh takes the soldier at his word. In the proud tradition of “Predator,” servicemen begin acting strangely and dying horribly.
Performances are a bit of a mixed bag. Rourke phones it in playing most of his scenes unenthusiastically behind a desk. I suspect he thought wearing an eye patch was acting enough. Knepper can entertainingly play this sort of shithead in his sleep after having essayed scumbaggy roles such as T-Bag on “Prison Break” and Sid Rothman on Frank Darabont’s “Mob City.” Rathbone (supposedly a distant descendant of both Stonewall Jackson and Basil Rathbone) is the standout of the bunch. He makes way more of an impression here than he did in any of the “Twilight” flicks. The dude comes across as slight, but he’s believably badass.
“WarHunt” is helmed by conceptual artist-turned-director Mauro Borrelli (he previously made the Wesley Snipes DTV sci-fi actioneer “The Recall”) and co-written by Borrelli, Reggie Keyohara III and Scott Svatos. The picture, which shot in Riga, Latvia during the early stages of the pandemic (see articles here and here), is a low-budget affair but it’s not altogether ineffective. The Riga woods add considerable creepy atmosphere to the proceedings. The visual effects oscillate between awesome and awful – probably a reflection of both Borrelli’s art department past and limited funds. Sadly, the conclusion is lit so dimly that it’s damn near indecipherable.
My suggestion to y’all: skip “WarHunt” and opt instead for a watch or rewatch of “Overlord” – it’s the vastly superior (and admittedly much bigger budgeted) exercise in World War II action-horror.