Headhunter

Written & Directed by Paul Tarantino
Starring Mark Aiken and Kristi Clainos

Imagine, if you will, a horror movie made just for Lifetime. You know, the cable channel for women. The main character hates his job and is emotionally detaching himself from his girlfriend. He is referred to a female headhunter who lands him a better-paying piece-of-cake job, but it’s working the graveyard shift, which further takes him away from his girlfriend. She, of course, suspects there’s another woman. Well, there is, but when the other woman is undead, does that really count? On Lifetime, it does.

And rather than telling one complete, growing, terrifying story, the film is edited into little bite-sized morsels that fade to black without really needing to, except to maybe give the audience a chance to discuss their feelings and/or spoon.

The biggest horror is the laughable makeup effects. I think they had some leftover rubber masks left over from Halloween at the local drugstore, on which the visual effects are based.

This is not to say it’s all bad. The film’s idea is cool, and the acting isn’t as bad as, say, a high school production of Annie. Besides, one of the driving scenes takes place on Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica mountains above Malibu. I guess that’s only cool because I know where that is. Never mind.

Coolness: there is nakedness.
Dorkness: it’s still a Lifetime-style movie, only with nakedness. And cursing.
Bottom line: At the time, I didn’t feel like Tarantino stole an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back, but now that I think about it (or reflect on my feelings from the evening), he did steal an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back. SOB!