Affamés

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'll admit, I have a thing for low budget horror films. But I don't review all of them, just the ones that impressed me. This one definitely falls in that category.

Here's a few reasons:

1) It's less about gore (although there is some) and more about human behavior. It's an incredibly psychological film that really makes you wonder "what would I do in this situation?" and, possibly, leave you surprised at your answer. Not what I was expecting, but definitely kept me watching.

2) The acting was pretty good. So many of the low-budget movies get stuck with a good story but wooden acting--not this one.

3) The story. They actually give you a solid background for what's going on and it never felt too rushed or too slow.

This isn't the goriest or grossest I've seen, but you still might want to leave your stomach at the door. If you're into dark, scary movies about human depravity, this one's for you. I found it entirely fascinating.

Awakening to find themselves trapped in an underground bunker with no way out, a group of people finds themselves subjected to an experiment in food deprivation to determine the effects of hunger on a person, and begin slowly losing their humanity the longer they stay involved in the situation.

As a pretty dismal and really uneven entry, this one doesn't have all that much going for it. One of the few positive aspects here is the rather appealing setup of the madman who has a legitimate quest in place. The effects of starvation and hunger on a human body serves as a solid enough premise and offers up the kind of disturbing start here that's got the potential for a much creepier film than it really provided in the end. The ability to explore the kind of human psyche probing that goes into this kind of genre effort is a rich and potentially exploitative feature which really could've given this a lot more substance as the long-term effects are quite intriguing work that the film utilizes. While it does have some grisly, realistic violence and gore shown here, the fact that this is more of a human psyche study than an out-and-out carving up of the human body, it's not as suspenseful, chilling or even creepy as it stands and really only serves those looking for the deeper meanings while those looking for more traditional efforts will be utterly bored and disappointed. Beyond the initial appearance and trappings of a torture film, the particular area of study conducted by the madman dictates that hardly anything at all even happens in this one as they sit around talking to each other or attempting escapes while they're being watched over, letting the film seemingly go on forever with absolutely nothing happening or even getting any kinds of answers to questions since the lead psycho never utters a word and all of the notes undertaken don't come off legibly. The other problem here is the fact that the study is never conducted in any kind of realistic manner since the whole affair transpires over the course of a month without anyone looking even slightly encumbered by only consuming water instead of any kind of substance. The attempts to make-up them into looking hideous or malnourished are completely mishandled and manage to cause them to look glamorous instead, quite the opposite of what the purpose is while also missing the point of a realistic manner of human deterioration that usually occurs. By completely failing to understand this basic concept of the film, it's nearly impossible to get into this one on any level which really throws this one away the most on top of the other flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

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.

Every human being needs to eat, drink and breathe in order to live. We are able to survive longer without food than air and water, but how far would we go to make sure we have food? There are starving people all over the world that simply starve to death, but that is a way of life for them. In other words: they aren't used to having anything to eat. What if they came from a nation where they have never had to go a day without a meal?

"Hunger" is from the bag of your unorthodox psychotics. If your traditional psychotic is one that kills people with no regard but still is a hands-on killer, the unorthodox psychotic is the one that sets up elaborate schemes or traps in order to kill his prey.

In this film a very mentally deranged man places five random strangers in a secluded yet locked location with no sustenance to survive except water and each other. His plan: see if they would cannibalize themselves in order to survive.

This is a movie that delves into how depraved human beings can become when facing death. It was an interesting movie that gave us some gore and a little bit of depression. I think we'd all like to believe in our basic humanity but what would we do?