Hungry

If you want a category within the genre known as horror that includes diversity, you should look for animal horror films. You will find so many different versions of animal horror, where you have everything from attacking grizzly bears, snakes, alligators, hogs, spiders, sharks, deer, crocodiles,  and many more. Animal horror turned out to be especially popular during the 1970´s and the 1980´s, with classics such as the 1976 film Grizzly. You can probably figure out that this film is about an attacking grizzly bear, but what´s especially interesting is how much money this film made on a 750.000 U.S. dollars. Worldwide this film made 39 million U.S. dollars and let´s be honest, that is fantastic box office numbers for a horror film such as this back in 1976. Since then we have a lot of animal horror movies released every year, espcially on the lower budget scale. There are exceptions of course where there is a bigger budget and i do have one i can recommend, especially if you love animal horror films with sharks. The 2012 Australian horror film Bait 3D ( yes it was shown in cinemas in 3D, also known simply as Bait ). Since the film Bait didn´t get a cinema release here in Sweden, i bought the blu ray instead. A tsunami wave hits all over town and a group of survivors are trapped inside a over flooded supermarket building. A shark manage to get inside the water of the supermarket, which means the survivors have to find different ways to get out of the water. If they jump they might slip into the water and become shark food, so what else can they do to survive? Directed by Kimble Rendall, who was the second assistant director of Nicolas Cage classic 2007 film Ghost Rider. A fun B horror movie with some really gory scenes. What i especially think works with this film is the different locations of this overflooded building, the set design looks great and definetely a different take on shark movies than the usual release. Worth a watch on DVD, blu ray or streaming if you enjoy animal horror films. One of the horror films i have been looking forward to see this year, is a animal horror film simply called Hungry. I have actually never seen an animal horror film with a hippo before, so that got me excited considering i have seen so many different kinds of animals killing human beings. Hungry is directed by James Nunn, who gave us the 2021 effective action film One Shot with Scott Adkins. Is this one of the best animal horror films of this year, or is Hungry doomed to be forgotten because it´s not as good as it sounds?

A group of tourists go out on a boat ride to watch alligators in the Louisana swamplands, but they have no idea that something else is out there waiting for them. Perhaps even more dangerous than the alligators themselves....

When the film Hungry get into the swamp plot it reminded me instantly of the 2006 horror film Hatchet. It´s a similar boat tourist ride in the swamp and in Hatchet they were checking out locations based on ghost stories, the difference is of course that in Hungry this is an alligator tourist ride instead. I just thought it was fun being reminded by the original Hatchet movie, which you should see if you have not seen this film. When you have a group of characters on a boat you need to have interesting characters to feel engared. I would say that the most interesting characters are especially the former firefighter grandfather character Tim ( played by comedian and actor Jim Meskinen, who made the voice for the comic book character Deadshot in the 2008 animated film Batman: Gotham Knight, worth a watch especially on physical media ). I actually wish he could have a lead role in this film, because this is the kind of character you need to survive out in the swamps when you are not familiar with the environment. Actress Madison Davenport ( who did a great performance in From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series ) as the character Sistine, have a charming personality while you can tell she is struggling with the death of her mother. Another interesting character such as Walker ( played by actor Joaquim de Almeda who played the evil character Bucho in the 1995 action classic Desperado ), a man filled with knowledge about the swamp. When it comes to the hippo itself it takes a while before you actually see the hippo attack in full person, and as i mentioned earlier about the shark movie Bait 3D there you actually got some brutal attack scenes. You don´t really see that many scenes such as this in Hungry, which in my opinion is a missed oppurtunity. I prefer watching brutal kills by animals, it becomes a more fun watch for a fan of this genre such as myself. As a survival horror film i would still say that Hungry manage to appreciate this film for trying to bring back similar films such as Grizzly from 1976. It´s a film with flaws, but still enjoyable enough if you appreciate this genre. Director James Nunn give us an old school animal horror film that´s enjoyable if you just want something easy to watch. Worth a visit on VOD or streaming, Hungry will make sure your stomache stays full.

Rating: DDD