Hamster Hell

I grew up with hamsters, and hamsters have always my fav family pet. We have them mating and breeding, and enjoyed every singularity of their personality and cute behavior.

This is a stop motion Plasticine film and, from the technical point of view, it's really fantastic, and the film and the story are cohesively narrated. Hamsters' behavior is accurately depicted, from their cuteness to their cannibalism when they procreate and don't have the space or the proper place to rear their offspring. I have seen this in real life, that's nature, but something really sad and shocking, and fits perfectly with the horror story being told here.

The film starts very cutely, and becomes more and more disturbing by the second. A guy buy a couple of hamsters and hides them from his mother underneath the bed. Then, he forgets the animals, doesn't care about them, don't feed them, mistreat them. Cruelty against animals in its full splendor. There are people like the character in the real world, for sure, so if this film was a denunciation of cruel behavior, I would have been OK with the harshness of the film. But this is a horror film per se, so there is an unintended glorification of that behavior. I find horror and horrific to be two different things, but it might be just me.

I couldn't see the funny side of this film. I found it difficult to stomach, and it might be the same for some viewers.

'Hamster Hell (2012)' is a short film, told in the form of a series of vignettes, about a pair of mistreated hamsters who belong to a young boy that can't properly look after them. The short depicts the arrival of a new hamster, who quickly falls victim to its accidentally poor treatment. Needless to say, tragedy ensues. Though the piece aims for comedy on occasion, it actually works better as a dark PSA about the perils of not properly looking after your pets. It's quite sad, actually, and Hardcastle's typically irreverent use of gore actually provokes melancholy here rather than the usual form of twisted glee. It's an unexpected but effective choice. Still, as a whole the thing isn't all that fun (though, it isn't necessarily meant to be). It's good for what it is, but perhaps it could have been better. 6/10.