Don’t Look Now 2021 Festival Winner – Hunters

*

A little while ago the good people at the Don’t Look Now!” 2021 horror festival apparently confused me with either someone important or someone who actually knows what he is talking about when I was asked to be, and I quote. “one of the esteemed panel judges” for their short horror film competition. Obviously I decided to play along in the manner of behaviour that had carried me successfully through life so far with my ‘nod and smile’ approach.

*

The quality of films was generally very good, but it was one piece of work that stood out for me and eventually came out as the festival winner – Hunters, by filmmaker Dylan Green. It’s safe to say that I was immediately seduced by the atmospheric and tens quality of a tale in which a mysterious paranoid man’s evening turns into a nightmare when he is targeted by a pair of pedophile-hunting vigilantes. In fact, I was so taken with the film that I was delighted to be able to provide you with some information about the film, the filmmaker with and an Interview of the man himself.

*

*

Dylan Green Bio – From an early age he had a big interest in film and after watching a behind the scenes look at his childhood favourite film THE MUMMY (1999), He decided hewanted to be a filmmaker.

Since then he went on to do a BA (Hons) Filmmaking and Screenwriting and recently completing a Masters (MA) degree in Film at the University of the West of Scotland. He has mainly been working as a  writer/director on many different low budget student films working within different genres but hisfavourites are mainly Horror and Comedy. Some of these efforts include, the dark comedy MEATING THE FAMILY and the horror CUDDLES among others.

HUNTERS was made as his graduation film, it is a thrilling and horrific morality tale of vigilantism looked at through his own unique filmmaking sensibilities.  During his masters degree, He manged to make two new short films which are currently both in post production including a horror short HOME and a comedy drama SALESMEN staring Sean Connor (River City) and John Walker Gray (HUNTERS, Still Game) which will both hopefully begin their festival runs next year!

In the future, He hopes to make more unique short films and hopefully one day fulfil his dream of writing and directing a feature film.

*

*
The Interview Bit

What were your inspirations behind the story?

I have always been fascinated by the concept of vigilantes in the real world, especially the ones who target sex offenders, and the overall moral ambiguity of it all. I read a few stories that involved groups of people attacking or torturing people suspected of one of these heinous crimes and I started to wonder how they can be sure that they are going after the right person. I decided to take this angle and combine it with a home-invasion film concept I had been working on previously to make HUNTERS!
Other films I looked at when doing research for the film including Hard Candy, Death Wish and The Dark Knight, always seemed to mostly portray vigilantism as a positive thing so I really wanted to go against this and ask the audience whether or not this violent behaviour could ever truly be justified.

*

*

How was the experience of making the film?

Working on the film was a dream to be honest. The crew and cast were all so nice and hardworking, I couldn’t ask for anything more.   As we were filming in an Airbnb, I actually stayed in the flat for all the shooting day so that was an interesting experience to say the least.

*

Were you happy with the result?

I was incredibly happy with the final result, aside from a few technical things I would do differently next time. I wrote it to be a very performance heavy film with some jaw-dropping gore and I think we pulled that off! Before I finished this film I had never been satisfied with any of the short films I had made previously, but with this one I could say without lying that I was happy with the final result!

*

*

Do you have any particular favourite genre filmmaking genre

Horror will always be my favourite genre, but I have grown a real appreciation for great drama and comedy with serval new films/scripts I have been working on.

*

Who are your filmmaking inspirations and why?

Some of my favourite directors and my inspirations for filmmaking include, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Craven, John Carpenter, David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, Frank Henenlotter, Llyod Kaufman, Jorden Peele, Ari Aster and Kevin Smith to name a few.  I love these directors and I’d say these are the names which influenced me a lot during all of my filmmaking, as I love writing dialogue scenes that reveal so much about characters without be explicit and thinking of atmosphere and framing to further character and story development.

*

Your favourite ever movie?

One of the toughest questions ever asked to a film fan. Well, I can’t pick just one, so I’ll give you a few: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp Fiction, Ed Wood, Back to the Future, The Mummy (1999) and Silence of the Lambs. I could name about twenty more, but I’ll stop there.

*

You can find out more about Hunters at the Facebook page RIGHT HERE

*