A review of "Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter”

By: Brian Cotnoir

     You know what? This film is boring.  It really is.  I mean, the plot of the film is given away just by the title alone: “Elfie Hopkins: Cannibal Hunter”!  So just from that title we know right away to expect cannibals in the plot and that that some girl named Elfie Hopkins is going to hunt them.  So what more do I really need to explain?  I guess I’ll start with the plot.                                                          

Uhh...isn't the guy on the left the villain???

So Elfie Hopkins is a 22-year-old girl who lives in a quaint country village in England with her father and stepmother.  Elfie’s daily routine consists of wandering around the village with her best friend, Dylan Parker.  Elfie and Dylan for the first half of the film basically do nothing except get stoned in the woods and look for “mysteries to solve”.  The reason why Elfie is so interested in investigating stuff is because when she was twelve her mother was murdered in the woods and the police never solved the murder.  Elfie hopes that by becoming a good investigator she’ll someday hopefully be able to solve her mom’s murder.  One day a new family—The Gammons—move next door to Elfie, but there’s just something about them that doesn’t seem right to her.  They’re all so happy, and polite, and very worldly.  Mr. & Mrs. Gammon are both “Travel Agents” that specialize in Travel to exotic places like East Africa and the Amazon rain forest.  However, their travel agency is just a clever ploy to trick people into going on vacations they’ll never come back from because the Gammons are actually cannibals and they roam the world moving into small quiet towns and eating their residents before moving on to the next place.  Now it’s up to Elfie and Dylan to stop the Gammons and save the village before they are all eaten.  So yeah, the plot is pretty rudimentary and you can predict just about everything that’s going to happen in the film.  

Nobody likes you Elfie...so go away!

     Not to mention none of the characters are really that likeable.    You have Elfie who’s really not that much of heroine.  She’s just a stoner girl who does nothing except wander around her town all day annoying everyone with her “crazy investigations” and shows no ambition or interest in much of anything.  Not to mention her character is a total b!tch to everyone she meets.  Every time she talks to a person she sounds very condescending and hostile.  She’s just not a very strong or interesting character.  

Dylan's in the friend zone/ He will be forever alone!

Then we have her best friend, Dylan Parker, who’s not much better.  Dylan is pretty much the male equivalent of Elfie, but he actually has potential as a person.  Dylan applied to get into a college and was accepted, but doesn’t want to go.  He doesn’t give a reason why at first, but it’s obviously because he has a crush on Elfie.  I have no idea why his character would have any interest in her, other than the fact that she’s probably the only girl his age in the village.  I think most women know a guy like Dylan; the guy who claims to be your “friend”, but really he has an unhealthy obsession with you and wishes deep down that you were his girlfriend.  Yeah, Dylan’s that kind of guy; moving on.                                       

Subtlety:  You Both Lack it!

    The Gammons—our films antagonists—are just so bland and generic.  Just from the first time you see them on screen you’ll have to roll your eyes and say “yep, they’re the bad guys, all right.  Mr. & Mrs. Gammon are just so plain and uninteresting.  As for their kids; their son Elliot reminds me of Edward from the “Twilight Saga” and their daughter Ruby, looks like a young mentally ill Helena Bonham Carter.  There is just no subtlety about them whatsoever.  Every time they look at the camera they have a look on their face like, “Hey, we’re weird, and you should probably be leery of us”.   There’s a few other characters that the film focuses on like Bryn the Butcher, who interestingly enough is played by Ray Winstone, the father of Jamie Winstone who plays Elfie Hopkins, and then there are a couple of the residents in the village, but we don’t really get to learn a lot about them before they get killed off by the Gammons.               

    This film isn’t bad, it’s just boring.  Really, really boring.  You can accurately predict just about everything that happens.  If you do decide to check it out, just prepare for a lot of predictability and nothingness.  There’s no action, there’s no excitement, just complete and utter boredom.