I have to ashamedly admit that I actually enjoyed this movie up until the very end. The main characters i.e. the girl, Diane, and the hunter, Colin, were fairly well constructed from the beginning. The plot was not well concealed, however, as I guessed early on that the "heroine" would survive all of this.

The evasion and striking back parts were even marginally believable though I question the girl's stamina after having been tortured all night.

What was most gimmicky were the "lucky breaks" that the girl got during the chase. The hiding in plain sight, the missed shots by the hunter, the accidentally (on purpose) knife left by the boy in the tent, the failure of the hunter to kill her once he had her on the ground, the breaking of the leather restraints in the hospital room and, finally, her re-emergence 10 months later fully healed and beautiful after escaping from the hospital with serious wounds and in a hospital gown.

All of these events just seemed to be plot devices to allow this supposedly defenseless girl to defeat an experienced hunter and miraculously heal herself and become a one woman vigilante squad.

Kudos to the heroine, Danielle De Luca. She really put herself out there by being nude outdoors for almost a third of this film. She delivered an outstanding performance, her fear and other emotions were palpable. The rest of the cast seemed to just be there to support her.

This was not a great film, but a wonderful vehicle for a very brave and skilled young actress to show what she can do.

Despite some drawbacks - being exploitative, sleazy, cheap and sexually sadistic - this isn't a terminally bad B-movie. In fact, there are quite a few good things which recommend it.

Basic plot line: a border town in New Mexico has two main male leisure pursuits – hunting and hookers. Young chick gets tricked into taking a job as an exotic dancer at a strip joint. She's trapped and trying to make enough money to buy herself a ticket out of there and back home. Meanwhile, a crazed hunter is picking up prostitutes, torturing them, stripping them naked, flying them out into the middle of nowhere and hunting them down as human prey. In effect, combining the twin male leisure pursuits of hunting and hookers – only in a more disturbing and deranged way.

Our main girl gets picked up by the unhinged hunter and so begins a protracted cat and mouse game of chase and evade across a rather beautifully photographed natural wilderness. And it really draws you in. You start to care about and root for the naked and defenceless victim whilst hoping like hell her tormentor gets his just desserts. For this type of low-budget hack job it is rare for genuine suspense and thrills to be skilfully delivered in equal measure, but here the film succeeds. The hunting and fleeing scenario manages to be tense and involving, at times even gripping.

The rest of the film framing the main action is mostly junk – poorly scripted, badly acted domestic and police scenes, cardboard characters spouting horribly inane dialogue, ultra-sleazy super-clichéd depictions of stripping, drug abuse and crude behaviour...and, and just what the hell is Joe Mantegna doing popping up in a very minor role as a dodgy sheriff? Was he drunk or something? He shouldn't have simply fired his agent for this one, he should have shot him. You got Joe Mantegna in your film. He can actually act – unlike most of the rest of the cast. And he's half the way down the cast list. Like, what gives?

Female lead, Danielle De Luca, is really quite good, convincingly vulnerable with a nice line in weary, resigned sarcasm. The times when she snaps out of it and becomes an aggressor in order to save her own life raise a pleasing internal cheer. She gives a good enough performance to get the audience fully on her side and handles a variety of emotions with some dexterity. She suffers with a certain human intensity which adds significant gravitas to her portrayal.

The DEATH WISH-styled vigilante ending adds to the cheap ambiance of the film and feels entirely tacked-on for exploitation's sake alone. A better supporting cast with better dialogue along with a less contrived pay off and this could have been something special. What we have is a quality core set-piece that is well filmed and choreographed but unfortunately book-ended and punctuated by hulking slabs of wasteful B-movie tack.

I believe the story was based loosely on real-life events in Alaska and has recently been filmed again as THE FROZEN GROUND with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage, so there was certainly mileage in it.

All in all, I'd recommend a viewing on the basis of the thrilling and dynamic events at the centre of the film and advise not paying too much attention to the peripheral stuff.

In the intro we see a naked woman out in the fields while a stranger shoots at her. He's hunting her like an animal.

The lovely Diana arrives in a small New Mexico border town for a job. Little does she know it's to be a stripper. She has no money and is now indebted to the "talent agency manager". She has to share a room with a fellow stripper who's also a prostitute at night and a junkie.

Parallel to this story we meet the local law enforcement, the corrupt Sheriff and his hunting buddies, as well as the new deputy who arrived from LA. The local cops are corrupt and the new guy is not quite used to that.

Diana's salary as a stripper doesn't really amount to much. Junkie stripper tells her all the ways she can make more money- take off more clothes, interact with patrons, and offer other services. At first Diana isn't interested but she needs the money so she gives it a try. It yields her more money and the night she meets a patron and drives away with him she ends up changing her mind about offering him other services. But he won't have none of it. He ends up kidnapping her.

Next, she wakes up out in the desert nude...as prey for our hunter. He gives her a 15 minute head start. He catches up with her but he likes a challenge so he doesn't make it that easy for himself. And Diana, is also a bright girl. She tricks him and escapes from him repeatedly, bloody and bruised. Eventually she gets the upper hand and runs into a family camping, the dad and his two teenage sons, who are stunned to see a mostly naked girl who now is in shock. Dad does the right thing and leaves to get help. But the hunter isn't done yet. Nor is Diana.

Naked Fear is an excellent movie for what it is- a well-done B movie with a great story and good acting. Of course seeing the lovely Danielle De Luca run around naked for a good while doesn't hurt a bit. Her performance overall is remarkable, downright award-worthy, given what she has to go through. It obviously suffers from B-movie weaknesses- low budget, not so good acting by secondary characters, an unpolished look indoors, etc. It's a tad bit too long, certain things could have been cut out or shortened. At the same time another victim should have been added, just to make our villain more despicable.

The movie succeeds at presenting the hardships of small town life and the risks of trying to make it elsewhere pretty well. And it does so without being condescending and offensive. You do end up empathizing with the main character. The movie is never exploitative but manages to humanize our characters and give the story a lot of meaning. Naked Fear is admirable for the risks the filmmakers took and how they managed to deliver their vision perhaps without compromise.