Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter

An aspiring teen detective (Jaime Winstone) stumbles into her first real case, when investigating the mysterious new family in her neighborhood... are they cannibals?

I really have no review to put here because it just is not a film that captured my imagination. I do not want to say it was good or bad, because it never really amounted to much one way or the other. I felt like there was potential, but it just did not try hard enough.

To properly review this I would have to watch it again, which I have no intention of doing. I cannot recall ever being so apathetic concerning a title ever... which is pretty bad. Typically there is something that jumps out as great or terrible... I guess I really liked the music in the third act, but that is not saying much.

This is much better than reviews would suggest. On a scale of 0-10 for flawed films where 0 = The Wicker Tree (flawed and bad), 5 = Ginger Snaps (flawed but good), 10 = Dellamorte Dellamore, aka Cemetery Man (flawed but brilliant), this rates 5 +/- 1, depending on what you think of the acting.

The film itself is well shot, well conceived and well executed. Compared to utter crud like Jeepers Creepers, this is in a different league when it comes to intention and execution. If Amicus produced Midsomer Murders, it could be something like this.

There are annoyances: poor dialogue, clichéd characterisation but also pleasant surprises: my heart sank a little when the film began with a girl (our heroine, a "final girl" right from the start: she just doesn't realise it) getting out of a car that won't start on a country lane. Nicely subverted when she walks a little distance and is home.

It is a first feature and has maybe a few too many references but, on the whole, its sly humour works well. I've watched an awful lot of crap horror in the so-bad-it's-good category: this is not one of those.

It's a proper film and is worth a look.

I wanted to like ELFIE HOPKINS but wasn't really sure what to think. The film itself is a misguided little mystery mixed with horror and blackly comic overtones. The main problem it suffers from is that Jaime Winstone is a pretty poor and unlikeable lead actress and the supposed comedy double act of her and her pot-smoking friend doesn't come across very well, these characters feel desperately like they want to be an likable awkward hero a la SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD but they just feel irritating and self-centred.

Otherwise the small-town mystery is built up nicely and I particularly liked the kooky members of Gammon family, lead by the dastardly Rupert Evans (a guy well versed in playing baddies after this and his turn in the TV miniseries WORLD WITHOUT END). But ELFIE HOPKINS is better at building atmosphere than it is incident, and the action when it hits is very poorly handled and cheap-looking. This is particularly noticeable in the climax, which should be a large-scale and exciting set-piece but instead which comes across as completely lacklustre and disappointing thanks to indifferent direction. CGI blood effects don't really help either. This film is an interesting stab at doing something different but it's only semi-successful in my opinion.

This is the most underrated work I have ever reviewed. I didn't look it up first so I didn't know what I was going to get. Seeing that this film sits at 3.8/10 makes me never to decide whether or not to see a film on account of the IMDb & the user's collective "wisdom" alone. Although 95% of the time I do completely agree with them. This though was something different that carried a sort of a 60's-70's feel/dark beauty, with the scenery & sets, the wonderful colorful outfits & even the time they took to construct Elfie's room right down to the smallest of things. So the scenery & cinematography are 5/5 which definitely helped to even out some of the weak areas in the film.

Getting back to the story now, a lot of people may compare it to Twilight mainly because of the dark & mysterious neighbors moving in next door, with the girl that starts to investigate the truth behind the obvious facade that they put forth, but wait, don't drop it from my previous observation. If anything it's a Twilight spoof but not the Scary Movie kind at all. It is a well told tale that is quite interesting from beginning to end. The imagery & cool vibe make it worth a watch. For the most part, the film was well acted despite the mostly novice cast. I really liked the character of Elfie Hopkins played by the up & coming Jaime Winstone, yes she is the daughter of Ray Winstone, the talent does seem to be genetic, it's undeniable, well at least in some cases.

Ray Winstone only pops up for a few seconds once in the beginning & once in the end which was cool to see them appear together on screen for a bit. So why this sits at 3.8/10 when there is a unique little story with cute characters whose acting in my opinion didn't stick out a bit with good sound & cinematography that was spot on, is a mystery to me. It has a decent amount of dark humor in it, it's not meant to be a serious, gory, scare the heck out of you film. Although there is some moments of gore & suspense it isn't really that dark a film as its main mission is of a more lighthearted story telling.

In checking the history of 3 of the other reviewers that gave this a 1/10, it was their first review in each case(which sounds personal to me) but the top two users gave it fair reviews so stick to them. I give this a solid 7/10 & I've written plenty(sorta)other reviews on films in these type of genre's in the past year. So you know who to believe, the other review by Tony Bush sums it up a bit better than I, and the mention of the boy & Harry Potter was spot on, I was thinking that during the entire film. I recommend it to anyone, just don't expect a tense gory experience. Even people that hate gore may very well still enjoy the story, just close your eyes for a few seconds here or there...7/10

If you like the dark humor of the Seth MacFarlane animated sitcoms, perhaps you will like this. It was described as a horror movie in the TV listings I saw, but it's not really a horror movie. More of a creepy comedy/mystery. Toward the end it does become quite violent and the laughs stop. Not everyone is going to survive to the end, and as is often true with horror movies, even someone you care about is not safe.

Despite her "whatEVER" attitude toward everything, I had to like Elfie. I know nothing about Jamie Winstone but there's something adorable about her, despite her hate for the world and lack of concern for her looks, though somehow she looks sort of pretty.

Aneurin Barnard I have never heard of, but Dylan was very likable. I did find one thing strange: Dylan is a computer genius but this movie was made in 2012. If it was set at that time, why is Dylan using 1992 computer technology? He uses what is essentially the Internet but gets there the way geeks did when people in general started using PCs.

Rupert Evans as the mysterious neighbor shows quite a range, going from friendly to downright creepy in a humorous way.

Ray Winstone is memorable as a butcher who is also a creepy storyteller.

Either one actress is either really good at pretending to be still or someone really talented recreated her head. You might either love the scene for its humor or be totally repulsed by it.

Is it good? Well, I did enjoy it as long as it was funny. The ending is effective if not pleasant.