Ten years after we see an argument between a couple ending with the boyfriend chasing his pregnant girlfriend through the forest with an axe and decapitating her, we meet insurance agent Ben Caruso (Ben Parrillo). While visiting a client he expresses his unhappiness at the yearly wages he's being paid and he ends-up being referred to "corporate headhunter" (someone who's job is to steal suited employees from other companies for their client), Sarah (Krisit Clainos), who promises to get him a new high paying job.

Things quickly get rolling as the next day he's given a job offer with a much higher salary. The only catch is that it's the graveyard shift and he'd be working by himself in the office. But the money is just too good and it would help to support his upcoming 'family' as his wife is due to have their first child.

However, things soon start to be extremely weird at his new job as he starts to hear hushed voices in the seemingly empty building as well as spotting visions of people walking the halls (he thinks it might be the janitor, but when he goes looking they've disappeared) and having the photocopier spit out hundreds of ghostly copies. On top of that, he's started to receive temperamental phone calls from Sarah chastising him for not doing his job properly.

From there writer-director Paul Tarantino keeps things quite sketchy as Ben is drawn into the murder mystery of the woman we saw killed in the opening scene only to find out that he's been "chosen" to reunite her dismembered head with her corpse's body.

Headhunter is one of those low-budget indie movies that sits firmly in the "middle ground". It has an intriguing enough premise and it offers up a few decent moments of imagery (the 'car kill' and a quite cool moment involving a bathroom stall) but at the same time it's too constrained by its budget to really work as well as it could have. It's not that Tarantino's script doesn't work (it's better than a lot of indie flicks manage), it's just that the horror moments are spread too thin here and it's hard to take our main "zombie villainess" seriously when it looks like they've just tossed a really cheap Halloween mask on an actress to make her look 'dead' - probably the worst looking effect I've seen in a 2005 movie, which is made even worse by the fact the rest of the effects here are pretty decent.

Generally, though, this isn't a bad little movie. It's not quite spooky enough and, like I said, it could've used more bloody mayhem, but Tarantino seems to know his limits and the end result is a fairly watchable time. It has a cast filled with TV appearance veterans and everyone does fine with the exception of Matt Bushell as Ben's best friend Scott - who's low point is in the finale when he's frantically trying to save his friend from certain death by digging up the head from it's hiding spot.

If you're looking for an indie film that tries to be a little different than the lowbrow slasher and monster movies you tend to get, you might find something to like in Headhunter. It has enough positive going for it that it's not a complete waste of time and it'll be interesting to see what Tarantino can do in the near future. (Chris Hartley, 1/3/07)

Directed By: Paul Tarantino.
Written By: Paul Tarantino.

Starring: Ben Parrillo, Mark Aiken, Matt Bushell, Lindsey Stoddart.