Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

tsasa198 Early on in the movie a man named Robert (Vincent Gardere) picks up a stranger on the side of the road. Yes, she is blond and beautiful and I'm sure that helped her get a ride. And as it turns out our good Samaritan Robert has hit the jackpot as once her gets her home (he takes her there because she has no memory and doesn't know where she lives) he scores some of the quickest a** in the history of cinema. Oh, did I mention this is a French film? I guess I really didn't have to, as us Americans, prudes that we are, are far too restrained to ever open a film like that. And me, being in the camp that you can never have too many French films, nor can you have too much sex on screen, had a blast watching "The Night of the Hunted." It does take place in something of an alternate reality where everybody carries guns and nobody wears underwear (and who wouldn't want to live in this reality), but that works to its advantage. For better or for worse the sex does feel downright pornified and if there is a female character you will see her breasts.But perhaps I've gotten ahead of myself. The plot, post-aforementioned sex scene, involves Elizabeth being brought back to a diabolical mental ward where she shares a living space with others who share her Memento-like syndrome. Her memory has deteriorated to the point where she often times forgets what happened just a few minutes prior. She wanders around the minimalist set that looks stolen from an Off Off Broadway production (and the music is no more elaborate) while men and women hit on her. The janitor, realizing the upside to this situation, sets off to turn their disadvantage into his own sexual advantage. That, of course, goes terribly wrong for him, and Elizabeth, realizing there is something terribly wrong with the entire world she is living in, sets off on a quest to escape. After enlisting the help of Robert, her and her friend Veronique dash through the halls of the mental hospital from hell.The film is filled with sex and violence, but it is not there just to entice the masses. The doctor who presides over this pit of despair has sucked the life out of most of his patients/prisoners. Sex and violence becomes an outlet for these people, something that makes them feel alive. I will admit though, I was left scratching my head over what this film was trying to say. Near the end they began to lean heavily on Nazi imagery and I wonder if it wasn't trying to indict doctors and science in general through the Third Reich. Nazi's made fantastic scientific discoveries, but most would say that it came at the price of humanity. The doctor here was also aiming for a great discovery, but the byproduct of that was having to discard bodies into incinerators. This all sounds like a very unsentimental view of humanity, and it is, but it is very effective at searing its images into your brain. The film is weird, but not off putting. French filmmakers have always felt comfortable using surrealism and here is no exception. It may not be a masterpiece, but for fans of unique cinema it is a can't miss. ***1/4

lazarillo In this film Jean Rollin traded in his usual surrealist-Gothic, crumbling-castle-by-the-seaside setting for a cold, modern Paris office building. Still this film has the same strange atmosphere of haunting romanticism and the interesting visuals that characterize the director's best work. The plot is uncharacteristically coherent--a man falls in love with a woman who has escaped from a high-rise clinic where she is being kept along with a number of other patients whose memories, identities, and very minds are being eaten away as the result of an environmental accident. On a superficial level, the movie seems like a cross between David Cronenberg's "Shivers" and George Romero's "The Crazies", but it's a Rollin film all the way focusing more on the tragic romance than the conspiracy angle. There's too much dialog and much of it is pretty inane, but some of it is actually pretty moving. It makes you think of the plight of Alzheimer's patients (albeit young, attractive, and frequently naked ones). The only real let-down is the acting. Brigitte Lahaie is a great actress for a former porn star, but that's kind of like being a great basketball player for a quadriplegic. The male lead is a stiff and the guy playing the doctor is pretty unconvincing. Still,if you like Rollin films in general, this one is worth checking out at least.

raymond-15 Not a lot of action in this film because in many of the scenes there are zombie-like characters who are suffering from complete loss of memory. It appears that their brains have been grossly affected by a recent nuclear spill. To avoid panic among the general public, the patients are confined as prisoners in a high-rise city building. Patients who are past the point of recovery either commit suicide (scissors in the eyes), or are put to sleep with an injection and disposed of in a furnace, or shot in the back if attempts are made to escape, or strangled by one of the mad inmates. It's so over the top, humour takes over from horror! The story is spiced up with a couple of sex scenes and there is full frontal male and female nudity. Elizabeth and Veronique (who spend a lot of time in flimsy night-gowns) make a daring attempt (after stealing a revolver) to get a message to the outside world. Subsequently a young man breaks into the well-guarded building to save them. The plot is full of weaknesses and the editing lacks the professional touch. The music is quite good and suggests danger at every turn in the labyrinth of corridors. Despite the exagerated nonsense portrayed in the film I watched it to the end. I think my brain too had been affected by the weird goings-on!

Keltic-2 Amnesiac women who remove their clothes at the drop of a hat (or a blouse?) are about the only stand-out points in a film that is otherwise slow and aimless. Although the basic premise of the story offers a wealth of possibilities, they are never developed to any satisfying degree, and exposition is almost non-existent. A large proportion of the film is mere wanderings through the corridors of a multi-storied clinic/hospital. The overall effect is bleak and sterile, a la THX-1138.