view_and_review
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?
Rich Wright
What WOULD you do if you were stuck in a underground room with four other people for a month, with all the water you could drink but nothing to eat? Considering the irritation level of the individuals here, perhaps I wouldn't wait until starvation set in before killing them all. And I'm pretty sure you'd be driven even more insane than what is depicted here. But still, if you ever wanted an accurate representation of cannibalism, here it is in all its unflinching glory.Reminding me of an old Keira Knightley flop called The Hole and about a million other films where innocent people are abducted and forced into obeying the whims of a sadistic 'mastermind', at least this one has a bit more depth than most. We find out about the history of this manipulative psycho, and the final denouement is ingenious to say the least. It's still VERY generic in tone, but it could have been much worse. Just eat before viewing... 5/10
homecoming8
"Hunger" has the big disadvantage of being called another "Saw" clone but it is a completely different movie. Sure, the story lets you believe that at first. Five strangers wake up in an isolated dungeon and are being monitored by the mysterious kidnapper. It screams "Cube" and "Saw" but this is not a standard torture slasher. It is an insight study into man's dark passenger. What will we ultimately do to survive ? "Hunger" is surprisingly well made with great acting, an eerie, claustrophobic feeling and intense and gruesome moments. As a viewer, you're really into the story and you know that this will not end well and that blood will flow. "Hunger" is an entertaining movie which will certainly be appreciated by the genre fans. But it's not just for the horror freaks. The motives for the kidnapper, who will kill to protect his project, are interesting and at the same time it's gruesome reality. The same goes for the choices the people have to make in order to survive. And it will raise the question: What will you do ??
Scarecrow-88
Lori Heuring stars as a doctor trapped in a well along with other selected victims, chosen for a madman's human behavior experiments to determine how they will contend with having no food, their bodies desire for sustenance slowly demanding nourishment. Linden Ashby, Joe Egender, Lea Kohl, and Julian Rojas round out the cast of suffering humans, Bjorn Johnson the psychopath monitoring them. Heuring explains to us in one scene, in detail, how the body will slowly deteriorate, the organs cannibalizing inside before total break down, starvation, and death. Bjorn Johnson's motivation derives from an incident when he was a child, eating from his dead mother in order to survive. Johnson will see if this group would do the same. Attempts to escape and reason how to get out of the well give way to anguish, fear, sickness, and mania. When a couple, choosing an area near the well as a make-out spot, are murdered by Johnson before they could get the trapped group help, we see that he will do whatever it takes to see that no one ruins his experiments. He wants proof that others would do the same as him in order to live(he even places a scalpel down there with them, sharp enough to skin flesh from bone). And, he is proved correct when one among them sick with a heart condition is picked to be food by the more savage ones no longer able to hunger. It gets particularly unsettling when Huering is bound by the others so she can not interfere with their din-din, and we can hear flesh tearing and chewing. Lea Kohl, as Anna, is quite chilling when she admits, in a cold and heartless manner, how she convinced Alex(Rojas) to kill Grant(Ashby) so easily, with Jordan(Heuring) having to endure her testimony restrained.HUNGER is one of those movies which reveals the true colors of those trapped bit by bit until each character is fully exposed. Again, as is often the case, it's a woman(in this case, Anna) who manipulates using sex and her allure as a tool of destruction. Alex's experienced cannibalism(and cabin fever)evolves into a psychosis as he rants about the essence of flesh while Luke(Egender) is given the keys to the kingdom so to speak(he has the scalpel). Essentially, Alex becomes an animal, his humanity all but gone, just a primal beast remaining. Luke is antagonistic and intolerable from the get-go, difficult to get along with. When Luke snaps, it's no surprise. Anna's true self emerging is rather an eye-opener, although using your beauty and look of innocence as an advantage shouldn't shock anyone watching the movie, I don't think. Besides the cannibalism and bloodletting which on their own are disturbing, Johnson's enjoyment at seeing his subjects tearing themselves apart may be even more macabre. Johnson has a wall with photographs and written information about each subject proving that he took special care in which people would be trapped in his dungeon. He underestimates Jordan, though, who retains her humanity and outsmarts her monstrous peers.It's the SAW formula made manifest once again, kidnapped characters from different backgrounds forced into a dangerous game where the one responsible for their predicament looks on from afar in a secret room as they slowly succumb to their base natures, the group trying to find an exit strategy, one by one turning on each other. "What will we do to survive," is a story arch used a lot the last seven or so years. Solid acting from a capable cast of mostly unknowns along with a twisted story give HUNGER must-see appeal for fans of the SAW films and their ilk.
