The Horseman

A gritty, uncompromising thriller, The Horseman follows Peter Marshall’s Christian as he embarks on a journey of revenge and violence after his daughter dies of a drug overdose – with his only companion on the trek a teenage hitchhiker (Caroline Marohasy’s Alice) who is completely unaware of her traveling companion’s extracurricular activities. Filmmaker Steven Kastrissios establishes an atmosphere of palpable grittiness right from the get-go, as the movie opens with a tense, thoroughly brutal sequence in which Christian uses torture to extract information from an unwilling suspect. It’s an impressively disturbing interlude that effectively sets the stage for a suspenseful thriller that rarely pulls punches, with Marshall’s surprisingly sympathetic performance ultimately anchoring the proceedings and ensuring that Christian remains likeable in spite of his less-than-likeable actions. It’s rather unfortunate, then, that The Horseman suffers from a demonstrable drop in quality as it progresses, with the inclusion of a laughable twist just past the one-hour mark essentially destroying the film’s taut atmosphere in one fell swoop (ie it’s a perfect example of the sort of predictable and lazy horror-movie plotting that Kastrissios otherwise eschews). The subsequent lack of tension is exacerbated by a rather conventional third act that contains at least one sequence that doesn’t make a lick of sense, timewise (ie how did those characters manage to do what they did to another character in the time that Christian was offscreen?), which, when coupled with a decidedly unsatisfying conclusion, cements The Horseman‘s place as about half of a tight little thriller. (It’s a shame about the other half, though.)

**1/2 out of ****