Affamés

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: Definitely a film that requires rapt attention. Though the film starts out slow, the pace allows you to learn about each character. As the film progresses, one can't help to think about food deprivation and what limitations or lengths we'd go to to survive. Do you give in the animalistic behaviors that fear of starvation can bring about? Is one mentally strong to battle the mind and prevent a psychotic break? Does survival of the fittest mean becoming a monster? Hunger definitely makes you think and as the film progresses you find yourself cheering and engrossed with hope that someone survives the sadistic monster that initiated the mind bending slope if starvation and hell all-in-one. Rated 6 for storyline, buildup of film, focused location and good characters. A slow paced film with lapses at times; but worth watching.

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.

The brave and very honest performances of the cast is what allows Hunger to rise above its low budget. It's harrowing rather than frightening, and largely predictable. It might have worked better if less of the drama had been predicated upon one member of the captives being unstable, of tiny morals and given to rage. We see the setup in so many horror flicks, a group of strangers awake to their captivity, and are preyed upon by a sadist to bring out the worst in their characters. Saw and Cube movies are just two of numerous comparisons, but the most notable. Saw and Cube at least gave entries a fighting chance. The setup in Hunger largely discounts that hope, which makes the unusual ending all the more satisfying. There's nothing essentially wrong with Hunger's production, or its pace or its vision. It's a good indie. You just have to decide if spending 90 minutes underground in a man-made hell is your cup of tea.

I'm about halfway through the Fangoria Titles and this is the new low of lows.The other films have at least one redeeming quality, but I couldn't find anything to appreciate in this one. Low budget doesn't have to mean bad, but the acting, set, and acting are subpar. Very little happens in this movie, don't let the reviews that praise it for being 'psychological' fool you. The first ten minutes are told primarily in the dark. This sequence could have been effective, but merely sets the stage for further mediocrity. Some of the editing is so poor you have to piece together what is transpiring by guesswork. These are not characters that devolve to survive in desperation, just poorly drawn characters that you won't care about. Not much logic to be had here.

Do not waste your time, no redeeming value.