When your flaming torch-carrying protagonist is wading through a claustrophobic, waterlogged, subterranean labyrinth in pursuit of a reanimated monster he has killed once already, you've pretty much reached peak Dungeons & Dragons.
Gorgeously shot in Portugal with a budget of around $30,000, The Head Hunter is a mix of character study and horror flick, with so little dialogue it's almost a silent movie.
Carrying the entirety of the action on his shoulders, Christopher Rygh is phenomenal as the main character, the titular "head hunter", Dagg, a grizzled, veteran, monster-slaying bounty hunter.
A film of two halves, the first part of the 73-minute movie examines the head hunter's day-to-day life in his isolated cabin on the edge of the kingdom,
Rather than focusing on the monster slaying (which always occurs off-screen), it instead establishes his routines and then deals with the immediate aftermath of each combat, coping with injuries, recycling parts of slain monsters as potions and salves etc.
As Dagg's wall of trophy heads grow, there is always one missing: the head of the creature that killed his daughter (Cora Kaufman) years earlier.
But then a trumpet summons comes from the nearby castle, the monster has been seen, and the head hunter sets out to wreak his vengeance.
The film is peppered with beautiful world-building details, such as the way the largely unseen inhabitants of the castle communicate with the head hunter - suggesting they are probably as scared of him as they are of the monsters they send him after.
The second half of the film deals with Dagg's confrontation with this final beast. He kills it and brings its head back to his home to mount it on his wall, but things don't go according to plan.
The Head Hunter (aka Viking Vengeance) demands a lot from its audience, but investment and observation are richly rewarded.
The set-up may seem slow, but writer-director Jordan Downey's script (co-written with Kevin Stewart) is incredibly tight, with measured pacing that sets-up and foreshadows every twist, right to the marvellously nihilistic ending.
Superficially, The Head Hunter may present itself as just another small Viking/sword-and-sorcery film, but it's really unlike anything else.
With its primary emphasis on the more mundane aspects of Dagg's brutal career, lack of expositional dialogue, and reliance on horror movie tropes when dealing with the final monster, The Head Hunter is quite unique.
From the costuming to the set-dressing, for such a low-budget flick, the mise en scène is incredible, creating a wholly believable world for Dagg to exist in, while the beautiful, unpopulated vistas that he travels through are pure fantasy RPG territory.
With its vivid dream-like nature, The Head Hunter is compelling, intriguing, exciting, and heart-breaking.
If you're willing to open yourself up to it, it's not a film you're going to quickly forget.
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