The Monster Hunter (1999)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I had the joy of catching this flick at a film festival and it is truly a find. Very off-the-wall independent stuff. And very funny. At times you may think it goes over the top, and then it goes further. With the right circumstances, this could have been a great cult hit, as it is much more entertaining, thought provoking and well-acted than something like Donnie Darko.And Carradine is absurdly hilarious. Is he being serious? Is making fun of himself? I don't know, watch the movie and make your own choice.The script is the true find of the production as it reads like the perverse parody that 'Natural Born Killers' never amounted to. It jumps back and forth between a sort of film noir and pseudo-documentary - and I wish there had been even more that interplay. It's almost as if the director stumbled onto a movie and didn't realize it was as funny as it ended up being.

I saw this movie on Showtime recently and I had a ball. Sometimes it was a little rough around the edges, but I laughed a lot. Hell, the monster gags even freaked me out. Very creative film. It is nice to see that small independent genre films can still find an audience. Check it out when you can.

When Hollywood studios jump on a band wagon, it is the unfortunate tendency for the independent scene to crowd the wheel tracks. Serial killers were hot a few years ago but these people aren't swift enough to realize just how much psycho-killers have cooled off. Maybe they should have made a boxing movie.The poster for this movie tags it as "The standing room only, sell-out sensation of the 1999 Austin Film Festival." As bad as this movie was, this is not a glowing endorsement for that particular festival. There were a few funny jokes, but they were far and painfully few between. Most of the "funny" moments were based on one of the following 1) "Wacky" back-woods types acting, well, wacky or 2) Cursing - as if the f-word is still such a novelty that its mere utterance will cause us to fall over laughing into the aisles.I only wasted $4.50 to see this movie. If you must see this do not be suckered into paying more than a matinee price.

Poor old David Carradine. You thought "Kung-Fu: The Legend Continues" was undignified? It gets worse. Remember, five or so years ago, when 'serial killer' movies were really edgy? It's over. Like Robert Rodriguez's worse outings, "Natural Selection" has the feel of a film made by film fans, not filmmakers. Worse yet, those involved appear to believe that all it takes to make a film is to emulate the likes of Rodriguez, Tarrantino or Oliver Stone (of course with the title, subject matter and style come the inevitable "Natural Born Killers" comparisons - one can't help wonder if maybe the filmmakers wanted this).The film is predicated on a single phrase: "Black Comedy about serial killers." The plot (two serial killers in one small town try to kill each other) is entirely secondary to the writer's attempts to showcase their preteen comic stylings. Black Comedy requires keen wit and irony, neither of which this film has, satisfying itself instead with a string of childish jokes and poorly-conceived, 'absurdist' situations. The dimestore dada really highlights the filmmakers' heavy-handedness - there is a particular sequence, involving a fight and a phone call, which almost works, but is completely undone by massive over- exposition in the dialogue. The writers REALLY wanted to make sure you "got it."I saw this film during a trip to Austin, Texas. I don't suspect anyone will ever see it anywhere else; I just can't see the market for a second-rate entry into a dead-horse genre.