Headhunter: The Assessment Weekend

I didn't totally hate it. It is amateurish and low budget, the acting and the script are poor. There actually isn't anything good I can say about this movie, except that they did try to make an actual movie instead of what we usually get with cheap horrors. If there would of been even one likeable character it would of helped a lot.

Just saw the German production „Headhunter – The Assessment Weekend" and was really satisfied with the gritty and humoresque attitude the Kraut director Sebastian Panneck is creating in his homage to the 70ties horror low-budget flicks. The characters are drawn with a sarcastic sense and after a calm beginning the film starts to gather pace. Lots of bloody gruesome deaths are happening to the lost students in the backwoods until the final encounter of the lead figures. The surprising end finishes this cool b-movie with a smacker. A good story telling through the editing is the base for a reliable and sound film experience. The lead actors are American and the performance of all actors is very solid. It seems that most of them are native speakers so the quality of the used language shows not the weakness (sometimes embarrassment) of other European productions with non-English Actors. The ghostly and partly disturbing soundtrack is supporting the dark appearance of the film. On the negative side I have to mention the quality of the colors. The color correction is not showing what HD can achieve today. The double DVD is packed with tons of extras. On some blockbuster DVD's you will not find that much. I very like the crew film that of the actors had captured. Good editing there too. All in all this double DVD is definitely worth the money.

There are certain films that we automatically select upon review for screening at Horror UK's 28 Hours Later Film Festival, they have to be of a very high quality.

The Assessment is one of these films. We loved it because, put simply, it's a film that you can sit down and watch - and enjoy.

It's not the type of horror that you hire so that you can laugh at how bad it is, it has a solid script, great acting and the cinematography works really well.

The Assessment is a winner of our 'bloody good film award', which means that it was a good all-rounder.

Joe Jenkins (Director, Horror UK)