“GODISNOWHERE,” says a church billboard, the vantage point from which an anonymous sniper rains down high-velocity death on a helpless filling station in this nihilistic but finely honed thriller. Do you read that as “now here” or “nowhere”? That could determine whether you’re a vengeful Maga absolutist or floundering liberal relativist in director Franck Khalfoun’s state-of-the nation litmus test, which inadvertently plays out as a shell-shocked Trump-era version of Clerks.
Alice (Camille Rowe), who runs social media for a pharma company, is returning from a business convention, with a fertility appointment with her partner waiting back at home. But something is wrong in her life: her colleague John (Jeremy Scippio) is sharing her hotel-room bed but, as they hit the road in the dark, she shuts down his attempts at banter. They stop at a 24-hour service station to top up, and not only is the ominous billboard out back, but there’s also a blood-splattered “God grant me the serenity … ” sign behind the counter. And as Alice exits, divine judgment – in the form of a sniper bullet – cuts her down through her left shoulder.
Night of the Hunted operates as a classic and cannily handled thriller under confinement, along the lines of Assault on Precinct 13 or Panic Room. Alice has to use all means at her disposal to staunch her wounds, alert random wayfarers to the shooter and establish communication with the outside world. Khalfoun effortlessly strings these vignettes together with a horribly claustrophobic spiking tension, and as she plugs sightlines with the line of black-and-white striped umbrellas available from behind the counter, at the very least the film is a great endorsement for the range of goods available at modern roadside emporia.
It is not quite as convincing as a moral referendum. When Alice finally exchanges words with her metallic-voiced tormentor, his profile – cuckolded husband, Middle East veteran, embittered blue-collar conspiracist – is dead-centre in the expected demographic. Khalfoun’s film is therefore less a nuanced ethical showdown than a head-on collision of worldviews, as the marksman harangues the marketeer’s choices as a childless career woman. And in its oppressive irreconcilability – adjudicated over at the last by a child character in an episode bordering on exploitative – it comes close to endorsing the bleaker standpoint. Night of the Hunted may fall a bit short of moral substance, but it certainly holds us in its grip.
• Night of the Hunted is available on Shudder on 20 October.
