Headhunter (1989)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply Perfect

Absolutely Brilliant!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Headhunter is set in Miami where homicide detective Pete Giullani (Wayne Crawford) is having personal problems, his wife Denise (June Chadwick) has left him for a woman. Add that to the fact that a sicko serial killer is running around the city decapitating Nigerian people & he's not having a good time of it, is he? He, & his partner Katherine Hall (Kay Lenz), investigates the brutal & seemingly motiveless murders when some crazy dude named Professor Samuel Juru (Sam Williams) claims that an ancient Nigerian tribal demon (or some crap like that) is stalking those who have escaped from it's homeland to America &, well it wants to kill them & anyone that gets in it's way basically. Pete & Katherine are determined to find this monster or lose their heads trying...This South African production was directed Francis Schaeffer & is a rather bland, forgettable & tedious experience to sit through. The script by Len Spinell tries to mix a Friday the 13th (1980) style slasher with a police thriller & ends up as neither particularly. The character's are dull, the dialogue is stiff & boring & as a whole the film just doesn't gel together that well. It's slow & not that much actually happens in it. The murders are few & far between, this creature is also able to possess other people's bodies which would give it so much power it's untrue but what does it decide to do with this ability? It sets out to kill one cop who's after it, it could take over anyone's body & do literally anything it wants & all it does is try to kill one single bloke. It doesn't have much imagination does it? Or should that be the guy who wrote this doesn't have much imagination? Even though the end features chainsaws, magical swords, dismemberment & a demon it finishes off with an awful sequel driven final shot. There are much better films out there.Director Schaeffer pulls off a few nice camera moves here & there but generally speaking the look of Headhunter is as bland & forgettable as the rest of it. There are a few decapitated heads & dead sacrificial animals but apart from that there isn't much blood or gore, when the demon makes an appearance at the end it looks rather rubbery & is obviously just a man in a badly fitting rubber suit.Technically Headhunter is OK & is even quite impressive on occasion but these moments are few & far between. The acting is as dull & lifeless as the script.I suppose I would sum things up by saying that Headhunter is one of those films that hasn't got anything major wrong with it but it's just that it's so forgettable & bland that I doubt I'll remember any of it by the end of the week. One to watch only if your desperate.

Damn, it's sad to see a movie fail so miserably when you can just feel the potential it had. This easily could have been a decent modern-day horror-flick about voodoo and an interesting demon on the loose chopping off heads. At least in two or three scenes there's a bit of suspense to be felt (I admit, it's not that much, but still...) and the demon's make-up is decent. The fact that he runs around decapitating people is a nice bonus too. However...I always admire the fact when scriptwriters of horror-stories try to give the main characters a bit of background (that doesn't happen much in horror). But here it really is a bit too much. I mean, the cop's ex-wife turned out to be lesbian, so then he starts hitting on his female partner who's dating a fellow-cop which wants to spend more quality time with her? Come on. Instead they should have made the demon a much bigger and menacing character. Where does he come from? Why and by who is he summoned? Why does he chop off all those heads of seemingly unrelated victims? Are there more of his kind? Nothing do we learn about this demon. But he does look cool. And he also seems to be able to shape-shift, but that concept isn't really worked out either.For a moment it looked like this movie was going to have a suspenseful bloody end fight. The set-up was present but the fight is over before you know it. What a waste. Even the over-all acting wasn't too bad. You can easily sit through this flick, but you'll forget about it as easily. So don't bother. But if you have a thing for sword-swinging demons then I won't stop ya.

A cop (Wayne Crawford) whose wife is having an affair on him finds himself facing off against an African demon that has just arrived in the USA and is cutting off everyone's head. Kay Lenz is his partner and love interest. This film is very crudely made and lifelessly acted, but somehow or another it manages to move along at such a fast pace and also manages to be very entertaining and exciting the entire running time that you really don't care.

This review has some minor spoilers in it.I avoided renting `Headhunter' for years. I would see it on the shelves and the picture on the cover would make it so that I just did not even want to hold the box in my hands. It has a picture of a deformed head on the cover, which would turn out to be the head of the title character. But it looked really gross. I finally broke down and rented it, and as it turns out, I had no reason to be hesitant, as it is neither very gross nor very scary. Yet that also serves to work against this movie, for much of it is not very interesting enough to keep your attention.That fact has more to do with the plot than anything else. The plot is that people are being murdered in the city of Miami, Florida, with all the victims being Haitian immigrants and all of them having their heads lopped off. Two detectives are assigned the case. One of them (Wayne Crawford) is struggling with the stress of a separation from his wife. His wife has been seeing another woman, and his ego is pretty dashed. In the meantime, he has to balance out his feelings for his partner (Kay Lenz). So when the grisly murders start to happen, it is just another stressful aspect in his life, but one he hopes he can at least handle. But then the case takes an unusual turn when their prime suspect informs them that the people are being killed by black magic. Yep, for some reason, voodoo has been used to conjure up a big, sword-wielding creature that pops up mysteriously for fun dismemberment.All that is nice, but it isn't effectively pulled off. It is never fully clear why the murders are happening, for one thing, and then it never makes sense how the creature gets around so fast. If he is magical enough to pop up in and out of places, why not dispose of all targets in one night? But then it starts to target anyone that knows the secret of the Headhunter. So it makes less sense with every little twist, and this makes it so that you have some contempt for the movie for a long time. It isn't until we actually get to see the Headhunter fully in the end climax that the movie turns from so-so to good. The climax is thrilling, well-shot, and all-around cool, although the final scene sort of robs you of all this. It's too bad the rest of the movie couldn't have been as good, for it would have made it a wonderful gem. I mean, it isn't all bad up to this point. It does things some horror movies don't even bother with, and that is nice characterization. The personal struggles of the main characters are realistic and insightful, it's just that the movie chooses not to resolve them interestingly but to resolve them through bloodshed. Still, the things I liked most about the movie were the main players. Crawford and Lenz are good in their parts when the story isn't making you scratch your head. They aren't the usual pretty faces, and I thought that was a good step by the casting department. If only the whole movie had been more cohesive, perhaps these two would be more noticed for their abilities. Zantara's score: 5 out of 10.