Hunted from Eerie Earth
Written and Directed by Kieran Begg
Cast: Ric Oldroyd, Saxon Davids, Beth Eltringham, Andrea, Waite, Megan Chase
This review actually ties quite neatly into our current promotion of London After Midnight, as it illustrates some of the challenges (and opportunities) involved in adapting a film script into an audio drama. (Do check out London After Midnight and Twilight Meridian if you enjoy this review. Or even if you don’t. I’m not fussy.)
Because Hunted, set in 1987 and very much in the vein (indeed, veins) of slasher classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and even more modern fare such as Wrong Turn, was once a film script gathering dust in writer/director Kieran Begg’s bottom drawer.
One of the things it gets very right in its transfer from a potential film to an actual audio is the tone. The films from which it draws inspiration have built and sustained their respective fanbases both by understanding their expectations and where appropriate subverting them. To Hunted’s credit, it does feel as though it might have been adapted from a lost, midnight matinee classic. It has the character dynamics, the feeling of inevitable doom and the occasional unwillingness of the protagonists to avoid the goddamn outdoors.
Kenny Jefferson is the good brother, the successful brother, the family. Matt is a stoner who, to his brother’s chagrin, hasn’t even slightly got his shit together. And so, because such is the way of these things, they decide to go camping, with Kenny’s wife and childhood friend Heather in tow.
As you will have successfully guessed, things do not go well.
I won’t spoil any of the plot specifics, but I will say that the cast never wink or nod at the audience. They play it straight and that maintains the atmosphere of dread far more successfully than a pastiche might. At the same time, there is nostalgia here, for the types of horror stories that, while they are certainly attempted in modern film, tend towards either the meta or mistake laziness for low budget.
It’s a tight, atmospheric listen. If I have a caveat, it’s that the dialogue can be a touch overwritten at times, particularly in the first few scenes as we establish the character dynamics. Conversely, the sound design is somewhat minimal in places. That being said, it’s only really distracting in the silences and then mildly. You can’t fault a production for working within its limitations, however, or we’d have no low budget horror films in the first place.
Check out Hunted here.
Kenton Hall 