Traqués

Hounded (2022) is a UK addition to the horror genre that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows a group of robbers who decide to break into the wrong family's home in the English countryside. The family captures them and sets them loose on their countryside land to be hunted, fox hunting style. Can any of the robbers survive the hunt?

This movie is directed by Tommy Boulding, in his directorial debut, and stars Malachi Pullar-Latchman (Shark Bait), Samantha Bond (Die Another Day), James Lance (Bronson), Hannah Traylen (Boiling Point) and Katrina Syran (The Lady from the Sea).

This movie was actually set up pretty well with entertaining characters, intense circumstances and an authentic premise. The acting is actually pretty good and the brother relationship felt realistic. There's a rock wall scene to start the movie that was entertaining as is the use of a bear trap. I also appreciated the solid use of dogs. However, this is one of those movies where everything felt like it needed to be taken a step further. The kills were okay, but could have been more gory. The characters could have been more aggressive, which would have created more intensity. And the ending was solid, but not as dramatic as intended. The best part of the movie was the outfits, settings and outcomes of the villains.

Overall, this is another addition to the horror genre that's almost good, but needed to press the envelope a little further. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Hounded was a surprisingly good film, I thought the acting was decent to the best it could be was not expecting samatha bond to be a villian but she plays the character in an unsettling way. She plays kathrine redwick, a wealthy person that larry lamb wants four teenagers to nick a dagger from, somehing they dont ask questions about. Chaz, vix, leon and and tod are down on their luck and chaz is tying to get his brother through college, but after getting caught in the ladies house the group finds themselves being chased by the four horsemen and dogs that know where they are going. Its pretty gory and grizzly in ways and you rout for the young ones. Overall i thought this was a pretty good thriller.

Just a bit of harmless ridiculousness. This film fails in so many ways. Biggest problem is you don't care about any characters, you actually root for the aristocracy (the funniest thing in this piece) who are trying to bring back a bit of order in this blighted society of ours. Really enjoyed watching the bungling "burglars" get what they deserved. In better hands this might have been a bit more of a thriller but I just found it predictable a bit boring and completely unbelievable. One of your mates gets ripped to pieces by a pack of hounds and you get over it in seconds. The hunted show no trauma after seemingly experiencing the worst of horrors.

An attempted robbery of a grand family home goes wrong for four young thieves.

Firstly, it's nice to watch a film that has a ninety minute running time, they seem to be a rarity these days, the problem.....the last ninety minutes.

I liked the storyline of the movie, and I liked that it featured Samantha Bond and James Lance (even if I haven't fully recovered from his atrocious accent in The Canterville Ghost.) Both are a somewhat flat here unfortunately.

It's a story of revenge I guess, but it's just impossible to have sympathy with any of the characters, a set of thieves, or a set of vigilante aristocrats in riding gear. None of the characters feel real, they are caricatures and stereotypes.

It felt pretty cheaply made, I guess that it clearly didn't have much of a budget, but it's such an unimaginative production.

I don't think it's worthy of a 1 or 2 star rating, nor can I see anything to warrant it getting anything towards the higher end of the scale either, it's just too flawed.

4/10.

Well, at first after seeing it has only 4.7/10 I did not expect much. I actually thought it might be one of those movies you stop watching after first 15 minutes of it....however I was in for a quite surprise :) It has huuuge potential and great general primesse. It was shot nicely, some interesting scenec and concepts. Samantha Bond is just brilliant. Now, the plot and the screenplay do suffer from cliches and obvious expectations, hence I almost gave it 7/10 if there weren't for such a messy third act. In all generalsenes I would enjoy a sequel. Anyhow, nice little indie film. Do give it a watch and don't let such a low ratings turn you away from it. Cheers.