Monday, December 25, 2017

Movie review - "The Woman Hunt" (1972) **

John Ashley helped Roger Corman made The Big Doll House in the Philippines for New World Pictures, then New World financed some Ashley productions of which this was the last. It's a riff on The Most Dangerous Game - well, kind of. The plot has some white women kidnapped by vicious Eddie Garcia, but there's no official hunting because the women escape.

Ashley plays a mercenary who helps kidnap the women... but then he changes his mind and helps them escape. This kind of feels like a cheat because in the best of these films the women would get themselves out of trouble.

There are three main women, none of them particularly memorable: Pat Woodell (who was in a few of these movies), Charlene Jones (the black one) and Laurie Rose. The film badly needed someone with a bit more star power, like a Roberta Collins or a Pam Grier. Lisa Todd has the best role as the lecherous lesbian head of security for Garcia.

There's some nudity and lots of rape and uninspired action. None of the actors are on fire, except for Garcia. But then no one really has much of a character to play - I really struggled to tell the girls apart, and the men too.

I didn't enjoy this film. The handling felt too heavy or something. Jack Hill (who provided the original story) might have been a better choice as director than Eddie Romero - Hill had a lighter touch and more energy.  Scenes which should have been great like Pat Woodell sacrificing herself blowing away hunters before being killed herself, are just flat. There's also stupid bits like Laurie Rose and Ashley going for a frolicking swim when they're still in danger, and Garcia deciding to kill himself when he clearly should've been killed, and Todd going from bad ass sidekick to dopey girl.

Maybe it never would have worked with Ashley being the one who saves the girls. But its an unattractive, unexciting, poorly-made movie.

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