DVD review: Season of the Hunted (2003)

Five regular guys from Long Island, NY head out on a boys weekend to upstate New York for a weekend of bow hunting. Steve (Timothy Gibbs), a New York fireman (post 9/11), organizes the trip for a much needed R & R. It turns sour when their hosts turn out to be a cult group of cannibal hunters. After realizing our boys ARE the hunted, Steve survives the struggle of his life and returns home to Long Island safely to his pregnant wife with the help of his friend Frank (Muse Watson). Frank calls on his black-ops Vietnam training, while struggling with his own issues, to get them out alive. Season of the Hunted is written by Phil Faicco and is directed by Ron Sperling. The acting is pretty good, especially from Muse Watson and Timothy Gibbs. The camerawork and editing is good but there are some awfully bad scenes that are supposed to represent Frank´s flashbacks to the Vietnam war. There are also a some fight choreography that is something of a dissapointment but I won´t go into any details due to the risk of spoilers. The pacing is good and we get to know the characters before things kick off. There is some gore, mostly related to arrows and the make-up fx is decent. But this could have been far more graphic/gorier when you consider how some of the characters are getting killed. Season of the Hunted starts off a with a sex scene which is very soft and there is only some brief T and A in this,
This review is based upon the region 1 DVD release from Lionsgate Home Entertainment, it has english and spanish subtitles.
Rating: 5 out of 7. As a big fan of backwoods survival flicks I really enjoyed Season of the Hunted, it is quite predictable but it´s entertaining, pretty well made and quite violent. I just wish that it had been a bit gorier as there are several kills that could have been more graphic.

/JL