HORROR MOVIE REVIEW: HOUNDED, DIRECTED BY TOMMY BOULDING

Hounded is a fun film, not to be taken too seriously, but it is hard not to when the undercurrent theme and storyline could well be used as a training manual for the Tory Party. It’s not the best of the genre of ‘hunted humans’ but it is definitely worth a watch if you enjoy this kind of film.

Hounded (2022)
A stately home robbery takes an evil turn one night when a gang of young thieves are caught by the owners of the house and then hunted across the estate for the proprietor’s entertainment. (IMDB)

Written by Ray Bogdanovich and Dean Lines
Directed by Tommy Boulding

A Horror Movie Review by Mark Walker 

​Hounded joins the pantheon of “hunted humans” films out there, choosing the often used, but perfectly fitting, exploration of the class difference between the hunted and the hunters. Although many such films use class as the divide, Hounded is a fairly timely addition to the genre considering the current political climate in the UK and the seemingly bulletproof status of the upper-classes – this might as well have had Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg hunting benefit claimants on Hampstead Heath.

Chaz (Malachi Pullar-Latchman) Vix (Hannah Traylen), Leon (Nobuse Jnr) and Tod (Ross Coles) are criminals, lovable rogues, ripping off the wealthy to help pay for Leon’s younger brother, Chaz to go to University; modern day Robin Hoods. They dare to dream of a better life even just for one of them, for the chance to break free from the cycle of poverty they have been born into. They steal valuable antiques and heirlooms from fancy houses and sell them through antique dealer and fence, Gregory (Larry Lamb). Their latest heist nets them a lot of cash, possibly enough for Chaz’s chance to escape, but group leader Leon is talked into the proverbial ‘one last job’ by his crew, who see a real chance to escape their lot in life.

However, they are shafted by Gregory who is, at the very least, a card-carrying member of the upper middle-class, trying to curry favour with the elite set he wants to be part of, a willing familiar for the vampires at the top of the chain. They discover too late that the house they have invaded isn’t empty and the aristocratic family are lying in wait, ready to capture them. A few painful meetings with a taser later, and the group wake up in a van. They are driven out into the middle of a field and dumped after a snobby lecture about the state of the nation and how their type are a blemish on society. While our anti-heroes are trying their hardest to escape the confines of a working-class life, their upper-class captors are doing everything they can to stop them, to push them back down where they think the great unwashed belong – again, very topical. Thinking they are free, the group despondently make their way through the field, only to hear the distant approach of horses, hounds, and bugles.
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The hunt is on!

Like similar films, Hounded has, at its heart, a remarkably simple premise, ‘what if we hunted humans’? We’ve seen it done many times before and in a multitude of ways whether in The Hunger Games, Battle Royale or, more recently, The Hunt. All these films play on the fear and terror of being hunted and running for your life, and Hounded is no different. Using that bastion of the English upper-classes, the fox hunt, as the basis for their chase, the addition of hungry hunting dogs adds another element of fear to the chase. As the hounds track them, the four friends find themselves running for their lives as the Aristocrats close in. To the hunters this is all just fun and games and is clearly something they have done before.

They just didn’t count on this lot fighting back.

And fight back they do in a satisfying fashion. I don’t want to give too much away, but there are casualties on both sides, and I applaud Hounded for this. We sympathise with Chaz and his crew because, regardless of their actions, death by hunt is hardly commensurate with the crime. So, if some of them do happen to fall, that makes for a stronger emotional response to the film.

And Hounded does make you care for the gang as they are chased across the English countryside, while also making you hate the hunters. They really are despicable, played with gleeful delight by a solid collection of English actors, led by Samantha Bond. She plays Katherine, the Matriarch and leader of the group, corralling her eccentric family including old hat, Remington (James Faulkner), dandyish brother, Hugo (James Lance) and eager nephew, Miles (Louis Walwyn) on his first hunt. They are all ably backed up by irascible groundsman Mallory (Nick Moran) and a collection of either incredibly sycophantic or oblivious staff.

But who wins out overall? Well, I’m not going to give the game away but Hounded was, in equal amounts, predictable, but also surprising, and it may not all go quite as you expect. I didn’t quite predict the ending but found it believable and satisfying.

Hounded is not an out and out comedy, but it does have comedic moments. The humour is nicely balanced by some tense set-pieces and chases through the estate. There are plenty of tropes you will recognise if you have watched any similar films, but they didn’t feel lazy or repetitious.
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It isn’t all successful, however. There were a couple of moments that felt a little less tense or dramatic than they were meant to be. For example, early on, there is a chase and an escape up a wall as the hounds chase our burglars across the estate. The filmmakers try to build tension and panic as the group attempt to scale the wall but have a lot of trouble getting up what seems to be the least imposing wall I have ever seen. Even as a sixteen stone, middle-aged soft boy I could have got up that wall and the suspense was lost in my frustration at seeing four fit kids struggle to get up it.

It’s a minor thing, but it did bring me out of the film a little.

The cast is great. The estate kids are played well and mostly avoid obvious stereotyping that would have made them one-dimensional and unbelievable. They are playing a dangerous game for ‘admirable’ reasons and play that part well. On the other side of the hunt, the actors are having a ball; dramatic and silly, but not pushed too far as to make them laughable caricatures. They are just the right side of “I could imagine people like this actually exist.”

Hounded suffered very slightly for me in that I watched it a couple of days after watching Get Duked!, which follows a similar pattern of “bad kids” hunted by the upper-classes, and explored similar themes. I really enjoyed Get Duked!, which is more of a direct comedy, and maybe the timing wasn’t quite right watching Hounded so soon after? I still enjoyed Hounded, just not quite as much, but they would make a really fun double-bill!
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Hounded is a fun film, not to be taken too seriously, but it is hard not to when the undercurrent theme and storyline could well be used as a training manual for the Tory Party. It’s not the best of the genre of ‘hunted humans’ but it is definitely worth a watch if you enjoy this kind of film.
Signature Entertainment presents Hounded on Digital Platforms 31st October

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