Mikes Film Talk

Gale Anne Hurd and Natalie Chaidez have brought Hunters to SyFy and it is a series about alien terrorists who are being fought by a secret organization. It is also tells the story of  one FBI agent whose wife has been kidnapped by one of the aliens.

Starring Julian McMahon as McCarthy; the mad (as a hatter) terrorist leader, Nathan Phillips as FBI Agent Flynn Carroll, Britne Oldford as the anti-terrorist officer Regan; who has a secret. 

Lewis Fitz-Gerald is the leader to the ECU anti-terrorist group and Laura Gordon plays Abby Carroll, the kidnapped wife of Flynn. The FBI agent looks after his deceased partner’s daughter Emma (Shannon Berry) who has Aspergers.

The series is based on the Whitely Strieber novel “The Hunters.” Strieber wrote a number of alien novels including “Communion” and is an alleged alien abductee.

Flynn (Phillips) is an Afghanistan veteran who has issues and is under investigation at the FBI.  His abducted wife is a piano teacher that the hunters want for some reason. McCarthy is a DJ who plays music with messages hidden in the songs.

In many ways this science fiction offering feels like a cross between Predator, the 1960s TV series The Invaders and Alien Nation. The noise made by the aliens sounds a little like the  bogeymen in the video game The Last of Us.  The ones called “Clickers” (fungus infected humans who have lost their sight and make the clicking noises to navigate) sound not too dissimilar to the aliens in Hunters.

Suffice to say these clicking noises are disconcerting and not a little frightening.

The aliens in the new SyFy series are “hidden in plain” sight and are considered, in the show’s verse, to be worse than ISIS.  Flynn is drawn into the anti-terrorist organization after his wife Abby,a piano teacher, is taken by McCarthy.

Flynn is skeptical about the reality of aliens.  McCarthy is scary as the leader and there are some aliens who cannot “hide” easily and these hooded creatures are also frightening.

Hunters is a dark and quite somber presentation. There is little to no  humor or respite from the serious manner of delivery, making the new series feel very intense with an edge of danger.

The special FX are impressive, even in the “rough” screeners, and the actors all deliver brilliantly as the storyline progresses.

Nathan Phillips, who most recently was a regular on The Bridge, is convincing as the FBI agent with flashbacks to Afghanistan who tries to follow clues himself to find his missing wife.

The theme of Hunters a, familiar one to those who haver read Strieber’s work in the past, reveals another behind the scenes copy can! l  A  feeling of discomfort and the certain knowledge that aliens are indeed here and working/living right next to us.

It is somewhat fitting that this series brings terrorists  from another world, although no one knows where these creatures have come from. The fact that the aliens sound more insect than mammal also unsettles and upsets the viewer.

The special alien anti terrorist branch has agents from all over the world and they not only want to catch McCarthy but want to know where Abby is and why she was taken.

Hunters premieres on SyFy April 11. Prepare to be impressed at just how good McMahon is at being the villain. This looks to be just the far side of creepy and disturbing.  Tune in on Monday, 11 April and see what you think.