It Hunts (dir. Gabriel Black)

By: Dave Hughes

There is an inherently unsettling atmosphere that surrounds working the overnight shift. It takes a particular kind of temperament and unique mental wiring to stay alert through the dead of night at the expense of sleep. The psychological toll of the graveyard shift sits squarely at the center of Gabriel Black’s It Hunts. Black crafts a deliberate slow-burn thriller that takes its time exploring its subject matter, but thanks to effectively eerie set pieces and striking, stylized color grading, it becomes a memorable descent into a psyche that is gradually coming undone.

Izzy Martinez (The Turn, Midnight) stars as Casey, delivering a raw performance as a man pushed to his breaking point. Completely burnt out from the graveyard shift and haunted by unresolved personal trauma, Casey gradually begins to mentally unravel. Supporting Martinez is Katlin Svadbik (The Skull), who portrays his girlfriend Alex. Alex desperately attempts to get Casey the professional help he needs, but his terrifying visions persist and grow increasingly vivid with each passing night. Casey's descent into these haunting hallucinations is genuinely unsettling, consistently forcing the audience to question the boundary between reality and psychological collapse.

Black’s thriller hinges heavily on its striking visual presentation. During the nocturnal sequences, the colors are remarkably vivid, taking on an aggressive life of their own that makes them feel like an additional character on screen. There is a stark visual rhythm established between the mundane daytime sequences and the saturated night shifts, evoking the atmospheric mastery of classic neo-noir thrillers like Taxi Driver (1976) and Drive (2011). This stylized lighting works in tandem with an ominous musical score. Especially throughout the film’s first thirty minutes, sound and color align seamlessly to signal Casey's disorienting descent into madness.

It Hunts also leans effectively into classic supernatural horror through a series of deeply unsettling visual manifestations. These glimpses into Casey’s fractured psyche frequently catch the viewer completely off guard, flashing on screen and vanishing almost as quickly as they appear. This rapid-fire visual style injects a persistent undercurrent of dread into the narrative. Furthermore, these fleeting bursts of imagery reinforce the film's deliberate rhythm, contrasting long stretches of calm with sudden eruptions of violence.

Those prolonged stretches of quiet calm inevitably drag the film’s momentum down at times. While there are genuine flashes of exciting, kinetic energy, the narrative struggles to strike a consistent balance between visceral bursts of violence and the slower, more deliberate character drama. Balancing atmospheric dread with narrative progression is a common hurdle for indie horror, but It Hunts demonstrates strong creative potential. 

Target Score: 7/10: It Hunts is a moody, atmospheric psychological thriller anchored by a genuinely intriguing premise. Bolstered by haunting, hyper-stylized visuals and a pulse-pounding score, director Gabriel Black crafts a memorable indie nightmare that keeps viewers thoroughly transfixed as Casey’s fragile reality gradually unravels in the dark.