Chicagoans be warned: brooding, quasi-metrosexual vampires are on the prowl in your city and the only person who might be able to stop them is an equally brooding, homeless, former cage-fighting Keanu Reeves lookalike. At least, that seems to be the case in Hunter.

Written by and starring Jason Kellerman and directed by David Tarleton, Hunter is an action-horror film that follows a troubled homeless man who must conquer the elusive vampires who were responsible for the deaths of his mother and sister. This film is the definition of a mixed bag, with the end result being a competently made film that tries too hard to seem edgy and has major flaws in its story.

From a visual standpoint, Hunter is an incredibly moody looking film. With its cold, muted color palette and cinema vérité tinged camerawork, the cinematography places the audience in the headspace of its paranoid protagonist while still delivering crisp, clean, and polished-looking images. It presents the streets of Chicago with a palpable visual tension and gloominess, and this lends the film an appropriately haunting atmosphere. Even when the images are pretty and professional-looking, there’s a rawness to the cinematography that makes the world of the film feel sinister and menacing.

Coupled with the film’s visual flair, the cast makes the most out of their characters and are responsible for some pretty good performances. Screenwriter Jason Kellerman and Rachel Cerda give pretty solid performances as the film’s lead and love interest respectively. Are their characters particularly groundbreaking or original? No. But for what they have to work with, Kellerman and Cerda do a fine job at shepherding through the story. They’re doing what they can to add dimension to their roles, and their efforts are commendable. Plus, given the titular character’s pre-homelessness cage-fighter background, the audience is treated to some fun fight sequences throughout the film, which certainly does not hurt.

While the film makes good use of moody cinematography and the cast here are all putting their best feet forward, there are a number of misfires that hold the film back from achieving its potential. One of the most egregious is in the editing department. During almost every horror sequence, the film employs quick stutters and frenetic flashes of images in a manner similar to the Saw or, dare I say, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. While this level of freneticism worked in the Saw franchise, its use here feels like the editor put scenes and unrelated images in a blender and mangled them all together. It’s pure visual chaos that feels like it’s trying way too hard to be edgy, and as a result, it just becomes annoying.

But even a cleaner edit of the film wouldn’t be able to improve the fact the story at the core of the film isn’t as compelling as it thinks it is. Aside from its egregious attempt to set up a sequel, the script lacks clear and decisive motivations for its characters. For much of the movie, the vampires that Hunter vows to track and destroy pose no direct threat against him. While the vampires are responsible for the deaths of two of his family members, they’re not trying to hurt him or torment him, and the two parties almost never cross paths in any meaningful ways until the third act. And when that finally happens, it uses cliched third-act plot devices that feel as if they were ripped straight out of an intro-level screenwriting textbook.

With all of that said, I believe that the team behind Hunter show promise and potential. They’ve certainly shown that they can build atmosphere, and I’m sure that they could cook up something memorable if they had better material. Even this film could have shown greater promise with a couple of script tweaks and more restrained editorial sensibilities. But as it sits right now, it’s messy, and not in the fun, vampiric sort of way.