By Robert Scucci
| Published
Writing for this site, I’ve covered countless RoboCop and Mad Max ripoffs because they’re just so fun to watch, no matter how good or bad they may be. I’m going to have to start adding more Predator-style films into the mix after watching 1996’s Star Hunter, which plays out like Surviving the Game or Judgment Night, but with an antagonist doing his best Predator impersonation while wearing trash can armour, while it’s up to the Scooby-Doo gang to take him down once and for all.
Star Hunter has plenty of action but no choreography behind it. It’s total amateur hour, but I love it because everybody leans into the camp without ever taking anything too seriously. It hits all of the Most Dangerous Game tropes you’re familiar with, but it’s also about a bunch of teenagers fighting off some seemingly invulnerable celestial assassin who likes to kill for fun.
Let’s Keep This Simple
Star Hunter is about a group of high school football players and cheerleaders whose bus breaks down after the big game. They’re stranded in the bad part of town and need to make a phone call for roadside assistance, which leads them to an eccentric blind man named Reicher. He lives by himself in a luxury apartment and is more than accommodating to his unexpected guests, which immediately makes them suspicious because there’s barely any furniture, but the back wall is covered from floor to ceiling with weapons.
As it turns out, Reicher works closely with an escaped space robot convict named Star Hunter, and together they make a game out of hunting humans for sport as they move from planet to planet. The kids learn this the hard way when they discover a trophy room in Reicher’s apartment filled with severed human heads. Reicher gives everybody a one-hour head start before the hunt begins, and it doesn’t look good for the teenagers.
What the teenagers don’t know at this point in Star Hunter is that space officers known as trackers are also trying to stop Star Hunter and Reicher. When the token pothead starts acting even stranger than usual, it’s heavily implied that he’s possessed by a tracker, and it becomes his destiny to ensure everybody’s safety before they all get wiped out by the killing machine hunting them down.
A Total B-Production That Will Win You Over
Star Hunter leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to action choreography and special effects. Star Hunter is supposed to be some iteration of Predator, but it’s clearly just a guy in a suit.
Listen, I know how movies are made, and that Predator is also a guy in a suit, but this really looks like a guy in a suit. He walks around like a guy in a suit. He shoots guns like a guy in a suit. And he is 1000 percent, without a shadow of a doubt, a guy in a suit. It’s fine to know this as a movie watcher because most monsters are just guys in suits, but in my mind, and within this fiction, it’s just a guy in a suit, which really doesn’t do Star Hunter any favors.
What really saves this film, and inspired me to review it, is how much fun it has despite the fact that the antagonist is just a guy in a (really bad) Predator suit. It’s straight-up Scooby-Doo, and I mean that as a compliment. There’s no dog in this movie, but every single person looks like they’re about to say “jinkies” whenever something bad happens, but only after they all peer through a doorway in tandem, with the shortest person at the bottom and the tallest person on top.
While there’s no clear instance of everybody running in place before darting out of frame and leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind, Star Hunter has some serious Mystery Gang energy that makes it way more fun than it has any right to be.
If you’re into action thrillers like Surviving the Game, but also find yourself craving low-budget sci-fi schlock and awe, Star Hunter, which is currently streaming on Tubi for free, should be your next watch. Don’t take this one too seriously, and you’ll have an absolute blast (pew, pew!) with it.
