The Hunted

Based on the terrifying true story of the Paradise Island Murders, the film chronicles the experience of the survivors and what they went through on that island.

Plot Summary

Several guests are invited to an all expense paid vacation in a seren tropical paradise. Activites are said to include fishing, diving, hunting, golf and much more. But what these tourists don't know is they are secertly being invited to their deaths. Eccentrict Billionair Thomas Bellmont has invited several sadistic gun happy hunters to play a game of survival, in which the objective is to kill every singel tourist he has invited.

As the guests arrive their luggage is taken from them and are invited to dinner, in which the injest food spiked with narcoticts. All the guests wake up in cages in a dark room. The cages are oppend and the hunted are given a head start to run and hide. All the hunters engage in a deadly persuit which ends up with dire results but could have been so much worse.

Pre-Production

Throton and Kamrill initally teamed up on the picture shortly following the cerimoney of the International Kanami Film Festival both were sitting in the bar (if one could call it that) talking about their work, (Thorton is an admirer of Kamrill) when the news of INTERPOL capturing Jason Hart and Maria Santiago came up. Thorton reportedly turned to Kamrill and said I think we just found our next picture. Because the case was still fairly knew and deemd only partly solved Thorton and Kamrill had to do much of their research from scratch, going through Interpol files and talking to investigators. Both also tried to get an interview with Hart and Santiago but failed.

In addition they knew they would have to talk to the victems and find out what happend and get the story from their perspective. Throton said it was tough because many of the victems were still shaken up by the experience. However all of them told their personal story eventually and Throton promised royalties to the film for their stories.

After a month of research a screenplay was complied in just a week, the fastest time either of them have finished a screenplay. Wasting no time Thorton and Kamrill began casting for the picture, and found an all star cast of unknowns from both Kanami and Emerald Springs.

Filming

Unable to actually shoot on Paradise Island Filming commenced on a small island under ownership of the Kanami Government. The island was primarly used as a Remote Hurricane Tracker in the late 70's but hasn't been used since. Kamrill thought it was perfect because it wasn't a tourist attraction and no one lived there (Or so they hoped) Tempratures sored to 100 degres and the humidity proved to be problems for the equipement.

During the filming in the cave sequance Jannie Roberts who played Brooke Thompson was pulled into an undercurrent and nearly drowned. She was fortunatley pulled out in the nick of time by, ironically, Marah Gonzallas (Who plays Maria Santiago whom according to the real Brooke Thompson was chasing her and her father in the cave) both Marah and Jannie thought it was pretty funny and kept joking about it between filiming every day.

Much of the chase sequances were challanging to film due to roots constantly in the ground. It made it hard for anyone with a Dolly Cam or Steady Cam to follow the characters which has lead to an absence in tracking shots.

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Marah Gonzallas as Maria Santiago

Although generally the island was absent of much activity, frequant visitations of curious or lost tourists tened to make shooting difficult. At one point they even got a visit from the Coast Gaurd and the Army because someone happend to see a violent scene taking place.

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Alex Throton Directing a Scene

Some survivors actually visted the set and all of them commented that it looked so damn real. Survivor Daphne Stone actually sufferd a panic attack while watching the filiming of an event she personally experienced, when Mr. Wolverstone poped out of the steam and began shooting wildly. With the guns actually loaded with blanks, (Unknown to her) and the sound of real gunshots she freaked and began screaming wildly before falling to the ground and quikly being tend to by the first aid crew. After some quick checking Stone was deemed to be fine. She aplogized for interupting the shot but Throton thought nothing of it, and gave her some compensation (Free movie passes to any movie she desired) The other victems had no desires to visit. Some of the more difficult scenes involved a lot of stunt work. Jason Thompson's death was one of these. What actually happend to him is still unknown it's only known who killed him so much of the events were fabricated for dramatic purposes. Thompson was sure her father wouldn't have gone down with out a fight so a dramatic fight was enacted just for this scene. Because of time and budget a scene which Brooke sees her father lying dead. It was scripted for her to actually cry and wail and be dragged away, however during filming it was alterd to her actual encounter which she saw the body. Rober Lowery who played the father lied very still on the floor and took shallow breaths to make it real.

Another paticullarly challenging scene to shoot was the river scene in which Wolverstone shoots from the water and manically shoots at everyone

Reception

Reception proved to be very pleasing from critics and crowds. The film in Kanami came in second in the box office in it's selected release. In Piemon the film took home an award for it's screenplay. Unfortuantley their wasn't enough awards that Sofia and Alex were not abel to immediatley take home their golden statue. Though neither of them minded. Kanami Critic Yuki Kon said the film justfully and respectfully told the horror story that occured and was respectful to the survivors.

Though on the otherside, some thought the film was a cheap violent expolotation of what occured there.