Hunger

CUBE the movie, back in 1999 opened the way of a new kind of horror flick, as also SAW did. People locked in together: a cave, a basement, an elevator shaft - a lift if you prefer - that lead to a close in suspense, character depiction.... Many possibilities of stories, details were possible. You had dozens and dozens of those films. This one. Ambition in the screenplay is here, but it is ankwardly done, a bit confused and the result is too smooth for my taste, it could have been far more disturbing, creepy, nasty. The ending is lousy, a French horror fim of this lind would have been different. Forgettable, but not crap either.

I watched this movie by accident and while it definitely has some flaws, overall, I walked away finding the whole thing quite interesting. It's an obvious late addition to the torture porn trend in mid to late 2000s horror (a trend I'm not a fan of, but, let's be honest, Saw and Hostel brought back R-rated horror with a vengeance and all horror fans should be forever grateful for that).

There are some profound continuity issues with this movie--the women have impeccable hair well into the experiment (everyone's hair gets greasy and matted after a week, so the makeup department and script supervisor should have raised the point with the director). Someone else has mentioned the men should have had much fuller beards by the third week of the experiment. These are nitpicking issues that, unfortunately, viewers in the age of absolute literalism in entertainment will focus on. Overall, however, the story is interesting and I like the fact that nothing is over-explained. In that way, the movie is a nice throwback to the superior horror movies of the 1970s,

Hunger is, if you ask me, a perfect example of the modern "post Horror" genre. It's not your usual "psycho killer" Slasher sub-genre, nor is it another one of these films with a wanting plot and lots of blood of gore to make up for it. Instead, Hunger proves to be an outstanding and impressive work of art.

Very much like "The Divide", hunger is like a psychological (and in this case biological) study of human nature, and its breaking points. The idea behind it is original enough (though I did notice some aspects that we've seen in the Saw series) and the way it's presented is truly astonishing. There are some gore parts, but such that fit in perfectly with the plot and are not the main feature, not by far.

Screenwriter L.D. Goffigan has truly created a marvelous story which excels in it being gruesome and terrible, yet always in the boundaries of humanity (which might actually be the scariest and most disturbing). Director Steven Hentges has taken this amazing screenplay, and turned it into a fantastic film! The cinematography, the flashes, the excellent use of sound effects, the contrasting classical music used throughout the film - all fit together to make a very worthy product. The acting was also superb in every aspect.

I do have some criticism, though... The film slightly failed in portraying the physical condition of the human body when it is starved. The actors did appear sickly and slightly demented, but looking at them did not give the complete impression of a person during the process of starving to death. I guess there was no way to make them appear skinny and smaller, and still with such an impressive production such a shortcoming really shows. Also, the physical movements some of the characters were able to do were simply illogical, considering they were supposed to be weaken by hunger.

And yet, all in all, Hunger is truly a work of art, and the IMDb rating of 5.1 doesn't do it justice, not by far. It's not a "fun" film to watch, but it unnerves and shocks the viewers just like this type of Horror should. Hunger will appeal to all fans of modern Horror, especially those of psychological Horror (though it does lack any real twists) and even those of "torture porn", though it really isn't.

I was going to rate it 8, hesitated, and came to a decision that it was worthy of 9 (if only to increase its dreadfully unfair rating here). I strongly and highly recommend it to any Horror fan out there!

I'll admit, I have a thing for low budget horror films. But I don't review all of them, just the ones that impressed me. This one definitely falls in that category.

Here's a few reasons:

1) It's less about gore (although there is some) and more about human behavior. It's an incredibly psychological film that really makes you wonder "what would I do in this situation?" and, possibly, leave you surprised at your answer. Not what I was expecting, but definitely kept me watching.

2) The acting was pretty good. So many of the low-budget movies get stuck with a good story but wooden acting--not this one.

3) The story. They actually give you a solid background for what's going on and it never felt too rushed or too slow.

This isn't the goriest or grossest I've seen, but you still might want to leave your stomach at the door. If you're into dark, scary movies about human depravity, this one's for you. I found it entirely fascinating.

What WOULD you do if you were stuck in a underground room with four other people for a month, with all the water you could drink but nothing to eat? Considering the irritation level of the individuals here, perhaps I wouldn't wait until starvation set in before killing them all. And I'm pretty sure you'd be driven even more insane than what is depicted here. But still, if you ever wanted an accurate representation of cannibalism, here it is in all its unflinching glory.

Reminding me of an old Keira Knightley flop called The Hole and about a million other films where innocent people are abducted and forced into obeying the whims of a sadistic 'mastermind', at least this one has a bit more depth than most. We find out about the history of this manipulative psycho, and the final denouement is ingenious to say the least. It's still VERY generic in tone, but it could have been much worse. Just eat before viewing... 5/10