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Overall Rating : 2.5/10
Directed By : Steven Hentges
Laura Albyn
Linden Ashby (Prom Night (2008)
Joe Egender (The Hamiltons)
Lori Heuring (Wicked Little Things)
Supplied By : Phase 4 Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : July. 20, 2010
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| PLOT Five strangers awaken to find themselves trapped in an underground dungeon. They soon realize they are the subjects of one man's sadistic experiment to test the depths of a human being's will to survive. As the days go by with no means of escape, their hunger increases as their humanity fades away. |
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| THE REVIEW In the film HUNGER, fiver strangers wake up, in an dungeon of sorts, not knowing how they got there, or why. Strangers to one another, the strangers are locked in with no means to escape. They seem to be part of some kind of game orchestrated by a man that secretly watches on via monitors. As a clock counts down a 30 day period and their stay in the dungeon grows longer, survival for the five becomes more grueling by the minute. They are given very little water and even less food, and as the hunger factor begins to set in, their relationships begin to strain as they grow more and more violent, even cannibalistic as some resort to eating the others. When the five strangers realize that the 30 countdown, was not for their release, but rather when the real experiment begins, they try their best, to tough out the man's mysterious and ultimate battle to live. Now stop me is you've heard this one before, there is such thing as a movie in which an innocent victim(s) awakens somewhere while being held hostage against their will, not knowing what the hell is going on/ Sure, you all have seen and heard of such a movie, because SAW made this type of film famous. Not only have we since had to endure 7 SAW film's since it all begin with the ambitious original back in 2002, we have also had to sit through many an indie copycat. HUNGER is just the newest film in the line of movies that uses a formula, that was once cool, but has since gotten stale and repetitive. There are some whom may like to watch all of these films, which are almost identical in ways, but as for me, I kind of grew tired of them after SAW II happened to be the best in that tired series. HUNGER is a film that resembles the SAW II, if one had to choose. We have a small ensemble cast, who wake up in an underground,dungeon/tomb/tunnel, whatever you want to call it. Of course the have no idea have how they arrived at the location, or else we'd have no film. Again, like the films before it, the characters her start to wonder why they were chose, and again they start comparing notes with one another to see if they all of something in common. As it turns out they do have something in common, and that fact is, that at one point or another they have all been responsible for someone's death(again, something of the like has already been done before). If you haven't figured it out already, the story in which HUNGER delivers is an unoriginal film, from it's story to it's predictability. It's almost as if the film's Writer, first time writer, L.D. Goffigan took a bunch of ideas from the SAW franchise and just added his own ideas here and there to at least avoid being called a complete copy from start, to finish. The "original" ideas brought fourth are that the characters are starved to death, more or less turning HUNGER into a film that plays off of the Donner Party incident. But unlike the many film's before it, there are no traps and such, or any kind of games to keep the film interesting. Instead the film's "game" is an hour and 45 minutes worth of people being starved to death, as the mastermind behind it all, watches on without saying a word. Well come on, at least "Jigsaw" from the SAW series has a bit of a personality, the the case of this film however, the film's antagonist(who is simply known as 'The Scientist'), is about as lively as a telephone pole. Almost from the beginning, it's clear that the film's plausibility is not it's number 1 priority, because before long, we see that shock value is. HUNGER is one that throws things at us, such as the strangers eating one another to survive. Yet, here the cannibalism angle isn't at all shocking, as it's no big surprise. The film is called HUNGER, and is obviously about people starving, so one has to thing that cannibalism is at least in the cards. So when it happens, and the one that is most hyper is the first in line at the human buffet, it's really nothing, just the same old boring stuff. HUNGER's biggest problem is that, we are just as much strangers to these five characters(six if you include the Scientist, who we have no clue about or why he's really "experimenting") as they are to themselves. Throughout the film, yeah we might get a few minor details such as profession, but beyond that we do not get to know them on any level, which results in them not being much above throw away characters. By the time the film's ending rolled around, I got a feeling that the filmmakers intended it to be really epic, but for me, as with the rest of the film, failed to make an impression, in fact, when it comes to who or who doesn't survive, the answer was quite obvious at almost midway through the film. HUGER is a film that in it's own mind, is a much more groundbreaking film, but the truth is, is that it's a less eventful version of what you might have already seen before. For me, HUNGER seldom entertained my "hunger" for good Horror. |
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| GORE
METER 4/10 Blood Splatter, with cannibalistic acts depicted. |
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MUSICAL
SCORE 3.5/10 The score was made up of typical suspense backing tracks, and for some odd reason the film featured tracks by both THE FRAY and COLDPLAY("How to Save a Life" and "The Scientist, respectfully. These are songs that I doubt that they paid to use - these will probably be changed upon final release). | ||||
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM As a film critic, I sometimes wonder how i'm supposed to rave about a film that lifts so many ideas from other film's, sure it's it's own film, but it's in no way original. The problem now is though, that there are so many films that are supposedly "inspired" by its predecessors - yet i'm supposed to like? Yes there have been quite films that are similar to others that I have enjoyed, but sometimes a formula gets really old HUNGER is such a film. It falls within the self coined genre> Torture Porn, that was thought up by the uptight people of the world. Not that I am on that side of the fence, but it's yet another film that depicts a sadistic person torturing people for their entainment, how many more of these films can be made? It's boring, lets move on to the next trend, whatever that may be. Be sure to check out FangoriaFrightfest.com you have until July 19th to vote for your favorite to win a theatrical run! Each FANGORIA FRIGHTFEST film will be available through Blockbuster stores and Blockbuster By Mail, as well as digitally via Blockbuster On Demand for a full 45 days before they are available for purchase or rental through other national home entertainment providers.They then will be released on DVD, September 28, 2010 |
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