Review of Mindhunters (2004) by Melisande F — 23 Apr 2008

I picked up this film on a whim, even though I hadn't heard too many good things about it, add the fact that it went straight to video, and I was prepared for the worst. But, I'm a big fan of Val Kilmer, even if his career has been a little stagnant lately, as well as Christian Slater, who in his early days was one of the better fun actors out there, so I decided to give it a chance.

Well I am happy to announce that it wasn't as awful as I expected, actually, it was pretty damn good! The film starts with a group of FBI profilers, called "Mindhunters", landing on a remote island for training.

Their task is to get in the mind of a serial killer called "The Puppeteer" and discover his identity. Unfortunately, the training becomes real and someone starts killing off each member one by one, with everyone being suspect.

The films premise isn't that original, but it's the way everything is put together that really makes this film work. One of the film's highlights is the setting where it all goes down. It is really quite disturbing and surreal, a fabricated town filled with creepy mannequins staged throughout.

The nuclear tested town of the Hills Have Eyes remake immediately came to mind while watching. The acting and writing were decent, with only a few hiccups here and there, but the real genius has to be the director, who stages everything perfectly, and is smart enough to make this movie a horror film with lots of gore as opposed to another action who done it film.

Right away the tone for the film is set, and once it gets going, it doesn'Â?Â?t let up, with a variety of interesting traps and deaths through out. The scene near the end with Val Kilmer is worth the price of admission alone.

This film made me think twice about judging a book by its cover, as even though the critics panned it, I still had a really good time with it. And I can still keep my head up high when defending the acting chops of Val Kilmer, really, he doesn'Â?Â?t make bad movies!