The Night Of The Hunted (1980) ***1/2

Pivoting from sapphic vampires and pornography in the 1970s to science fiction and horror (a genre he only outright dipped his toe in a few times) for his first film of the 1980s, Jean Rollin's The Night Of The Hunted is a surreal meditation on alienation, confinement, mental illness, memory loss, and the erosion of the mind, accompanied by a haunting score.

While Rollin dispensed with the gothic and fantastique ambience of many of his previous and films to follow in TNOTH, he does maintain his oft-used motif of two beautiful women (Brigitte Lahaie and Dominique Journet) wandering through otherworldly spaces—here, in place of graveyards and forests, the cold architecture of modern skyscrapers. More so than being concerned with a consistently coherent plot and perfect performances, TNOTH is a tragic mood piece with no sense of hope. 

Recommended for fans of The Rape Of The Vampire (1968) (review), Shivers (1975) (review), Rabid (1977), and Coma (1978).

Jean Rollin Feature Films Ranked