Directed by Mauro Borelli
Written by Mauro Borelli, Reggie Keyohara III, Scott Svatos
Starring Mickey Rourke, Jackson Rathbone, Robert Knepper
Rated R
Runtime: 93 Mins
Available on VOD and in theaters January 21

by Whitley Albury, Staff Writer

Maybe it’s because of family history (thanks, great-grandfather), but I’ve discovered that I will sit down and watch any film set in WWII. And this one would have probably ended up making my list, anyway. 

Warhunt opens with a plane over the Black Forest in 1945. There’s a gnarly storm, and suddenly there’s a bunch of black feathers everywhere. Imagine a whole flock of birds exploding into a burst of  feathers, and it brings the plane down. Sergeant Brewer (Robert Knepper) gets the call that his team needs to go find the plane and see if there are any survivors, since the plane went down behind enemy lines. As they start to head out, Major Johnson (Mickey Rourke, sporting a sweet eyepatch) interrupts and says he needs to have Walsh (Jackson Rathbone) head out with them. There’s clearly some animosity there, but like, it’s the military, there’s always some level of dissent.

As the group heads deeper into the woods, things start feeling off for all of them. Their compasses stop working. They find a windmill with bathing beauties inside (or are they?) They find a bunch of dead Nazi soldiers hanging from trees, with fistfuls of black feathers. Things continue to get weirder, like when they find the plane (and Walsh finds the top secret files Johnson sent him after) but there are no bodies to be found. Until there’s one of their own, stabbing and slashing at them even after getting shot. Once they finally subdue (meaning: behead) him, they see that he’s covered in old pagan symbols, and his internal organs are gone, replaced with black feathers. Things had already been going out of control, but that’s where it really started spiraling.

Overall, the film was a bit predictable, as far as major plot points go. Most of the performances were run-of-the-mill war drama types. For example, there’s the one horndog soldier (Fredrik Wagner) who is truly the catalyst for every single thing that goes wrong, the sergeant who refuses to listen to anyone about literally anything. It was all pretty wooden. There were a few twists that were pretty cool (well… maybe cool isn’t the right word for cannibalism). But there were some really nice touches that I really enjoyed, like the story behind the whole mission. Sure, there’s the whole we-gotta-rescue-our-men-from-Nazis mission, but there’s a third element: the immortal witches who feed on warriors, and have for centuries. They just happen to be able to explode into a flock of crows, leading me to keep thinking of the viral tweet about not being able to explode into a thousand bats. Yes, I did indeed snort-laugh the first time it happened. I truly did love the witches' costuming, though. It was absolutely gorgeous. The score was wonderful as well.

Is it one that would make my top movies list? No, but Warhunt is definitely one I would watch while snowed in (like now), because I have a hard time saying no to anything with Mickey Rourke in it. I just wish he was in more of the film, as opposed to maybe a grand total of thirty minutes. It’s got the right amount of gore (so, relatively minimal, outside of the aforementioned cannibalism scene), it’s got cryptologists trying to figure out what’s in the woods, and it doesn’t drag on for too long. The pacing of the story is pretty solid. There are definitely layers, but as opposed to being like a nice layer cake, it’s more like the seven layer dip you get pre-made at the store. It’s fine, just kind of disappointing and forgettable.