HEADHUNTER is an indie-budgeted mix of horror and thriller genres from Germany. Once again a bunch of potential victims head off into the woods, this time as part of a team building exercise. There are shades of the British film SEVERANCE, a fine black comedy with exactly the same story, but this is nowhere near as good as that movie. Instead it's talky, slow, and goes through the motions. Aside from the odd gore scene it's also devoid of horror.

The only reason this gets a 2 is because of the two decent looking lead women. I caught this on Netflix one night; and it had a lot of promise; however, the whole "headhunter" theme. A headhunter that's a "head-hunter". But about 30 min. in it gets boring and really never delivers. The headless effects look like something you'd see in a cheap carnival spook house. The lead "headhunter" who was leading the group very unceremoniously gets shot in the foot and lays there like a log instead of trying to lay the crazy guy's woman. Also, the only romantic implication at all between crazy guy and the lead woman is in the beginning where they talk about "sleeping over"(why for love pete didn't they show that???) Also, when the young pretty woman goes down and starts to take her clothes off before getting dragged in... why, why, for the love of all that's decent, didn't she get naked first. Then the ending... what's up with that helicopter? and was the goofy Japanese guy ever really there at all? And she just stabs the crazy guy... doesn't take his head. The goofy head thing I can deal with, but the lack of nudity makes this film not stand and deliver.

Just saw the German production „Headhunter – The Assessment Weekend" and was really satisfied with the gritty and humoresque attitude the Kraut director Sebastian Panneck is creating in his homage to the 70ties horror low-budget flicks. The characters are drawn with a sarcastic sense and after a calm beginning the film starts to gather pace. Lots of bloody gruesome deaths are happening to the lost students in the backwoods until the final encounter of the lead figures. The surprising end finishes this cool b-movie with a smacker. A good story telling through the editing is the base for a reliable and sound film experience. The lead actors are American and the performance of all actors is very solid. It seems that most of them are native speakers so the quality of the used language shows not the weakness (sometimes embarrassment) of other European productions with non-English Actors. The ghostly and partly disturbing soundtrack is supporting the dark appearance of the film. On the negative side I have to mention the quality of the colors. The color correction is not showing what HD can achieve today. The double DVD is packed with tons of extras. On some blockbuster DVD's you will not find that much. I very like the crew film that of the actors had captured. Good editing there too. All in all this double DVD is definitely worth the money.

There are certain films that we automatically select upon review for screening at Horror UK's 28 Hours Later Film Festival, they have to be of a very high quality.The Assessment is one of these films. We loved it because, put simply, it's a film that you can sit down and watch - and enjoy.It's not the type of horror that you hire so that you can laugh at how bad it is, it has a solid script, great acting and the cinematography works really well.The Assessment is a winner of our 'bloody good film award', which means that it was a good all-rounder.Joe Jenkins (Director, Horror UK)