When first we see Taryn Barker (Niamh Hogan), she is getting serious about kicking some dude’s ass, swinging her sword with vigor, accuracy, and style.  He dodges, parries at her and she responds in kind, leaping, rolling out of his grasp. She swings down at him and he catches the blade in his hands, stopping it before it can do damage.  Suddenly, we get the idea that this guy might be more than a normal human being.  More punches thrown, more swordplay, metal clashing, until Taryn finally grabs her sword and quickly dispatches the guy by cutting off his head.

What an awesome way to open this flick. Director Zoe Kavanagh certainly knows her way around an action scene. It’s frenetic and flashy, but never loses focus or becomes muddy about who is doing damage to whom. Kudos there.

Taryn delivers the severed head to a mysterious man on a motorcycle, and then, after watching him drive off with the severed noggin, she runs around a corner–and immediately is arrested by the police.  At the station, Detective Beckett recognizes her from years ago: Taryn’s sister was raped and murdered, and Beckett had promised to find the man who committed these heinous crimes and bring him to justice.

He didn’t.

Taryn has a very good reason why she decapitated that guy: he was a demon, and she needs to get free right away to go and kill their leader, Falstaff, who, just to complicate matters further, also kidnaps Beckett’s daughter.  Beckett has no choice but to work with the Demon Hunter.

I had a lot of fun with this movie.  Niamh Hogan as Taryn can pull out all the stops when she’s fighting and kicking bad guys up one side of Ireland and down the other, and then is also very sympathetic and emotional as we find out about her tragic family history and the circumstances of her transformation into the Demon Hunter. She had no other choice but to become the vengeful angel saving the world one decapitated demon head at a time, and Hogan does a great job communicating Taryn’s drive and motivation.

As Beckett, Alan Talbot is, unfortunately, not as successful.  Where he needed to be beaten and worn out by life, he appears just bored and tired.  He mumbles his way through his lines (and I’m very willing to admit it just might be my American tin ear trying to decipher a thick Irish accent, but it is what it is), and I found it more and more difficult to understand him the more I listened.

But let’s get real: you didn’t come here for brilliant recitations of soliloquies. You came here to watch a gothed-out young woman kick and punch and stab and slice her way through the demonic underworld, and on that topic this movie delivers.  Sure, its low budget shows a bit (particularly with the prosthetic makeup effects, the rather lengthy sequences of Taryn riding her motorcycle over and over, and the fake news broadcasts), but all was forgiven when the Demon Hunter paints her face with a cool drippy-batwing warpaint in preparation for her final battle.  I was rooting for her all the way–this is the kind of moment I live for.

Demon Hunter is now making its way through the film fest circuit, and if you can catch it, do so.  Bring your samurai sword.