Directed by James Nunn

Review by Hunter King

Some films are worth watching because of their artistic merit and avant garde spirit, others are worth watching because they are fun, whether or not they have anything important to say. Hungry, directed by James Nunn, is certainly one of the latter. Hungry doesn’t try to be something that it is not, it is meant to be a simple creature feature, following the same recipe as many that came before it. At some points, it does feel like it follows that recipe a little too closely, with certain shots almost entirely mimicking other films from the genre, such as 2019’s Crawl, which sees an alligator in the main place of the monster, instead of Hungry’s hippo.

The film begins by introducing a handful of characters that are almost certainly going to be smears of blood moments later at the hands of a vicious hippo. Sistine (Madison Davenport) and her best friend Hannah (Olivia Bernstone) are enjoying New Orleans when they decide to go on an alligator watch tour, led by Rodrigo (Michel Curiel) who mentions that he has three kids no less than five times. The pair are joined by a three generation family of three, and a woman who frankly has no interest or time to be on the trip. 

What ensues next is a seemingly highly intelligent hippo kills off everybody one by one until inevitably one person is able to escape. It is a cookie cutter film of the genre, but it does have a distinct feature that sets it apart from the others (besides the hippo, of course). The film decides to kill off the characters in a very strange order. Characters that are seemingly unimportant to the plot or embody archetypes that should see them as the first to be slaughtered make it quite long into the run time, meanwhile characters that should be essential and actually have some level of depth are unceremoniously killed without a second thought. Some may see this as thought provoking or a pleasant surprise, however what this does is make the latter half of the movie drag on. All of the characters you once held hope for died twenty minutes ago and now it’s predictable on how it will end.

Despite all of this the film is a fun watch. It is not a film that you would turn on searching for a deep meaning or to see Oscar worthy performances, but some of the actors (particularly Davenport) put on a pretty great performance. While it may not win awards or be one to rush to the cinemas for, Hungry is overall a great film to turn on with some mates at a movie night and to just enjoy for what it is.

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