User Reviews

But I'm sick, sick, sick of "human" characters.

You can't tell me that in real life, in a real life horrific situation, every person would act the same as they do in all these movies.

Luke would have had his face beaten in within the first 30 minutes of my meeting him if he was really such a jerk and there's no way I can be alone in my thinking.

WHY is it that everyone has to be so philosophical and noble toward the jerks in a group, when you know that in real life, people would NOT tolerate such a piece of crap of a person.

The pace wasn't bad, not really and the acting was pretty good.

But more realistic human qualities would be much more appreciated in these "cookie cutter" films.

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.

Day 1. Pitch black. One voice. Desperate. Weak. Confused.

Alone.

1 becomes 2.

In the darkness *somewhere* another comes to. Also confused. No longer alone.

2 becomes 3.

Another is located. All in the same space. No-one knows how or why they came to be here. Wherever 'here' is Still pitch black.

3 becomes 4.

All a little calmer now - just a bit - start to rationalise their situation. Realise another is in the room. Inanimate.

4 becomes 5.

The lights come on a large empty room leading to a small passageway. A large, wooden door at the end of the passage leading to a small room with makeshift toilet facilities and three large drums of water. Above is a shaft but no ladder, and the door/lid is closed shut.

A 24 hour timer on the wall running backwards from 30 to one ticks over to Day 2. The true natures of the various 'inmates' become evident. We have younger Mr Volatile, slightly older Mr Practical and Mr Quiet, Ms Determined and Ms Fragile. They spend the day cautiously hypothesising and pondering, occasionally interspersed with short bouts of rational irrationality.

While 'elsewhere" someone watches on hidden cameras.

Day 3. A discovery is made. A kinship of sorts. A reason for many of the 5 to be in their predicament. (For some reason this clumsy device is never revisited.) Day 4. The five-some realise that they're all in it for the long haul -dial a pizza ain't coming. They make two discoveries; a knife purpose built for carving flesh. And the remains of the previous inmates Days becomes weeks.

Tummy rumbles turn to true hunger, which leads to mistrust and anger. Resentment. Rationally irrational thoughts.

5 become 4 The time doesn't seem to allow the guys to grow a beard or any more than a 5 o'clock shadow. The gals maintain immaculately crafted eyelashes and hairstyles and aside from carefully positioned dirt smudges don't seem to appear worse for wear.

The film moves slow for a long while, but once it revs up things move rapidly. And once the blood starts trickling it isn't long before it commences gushing.

Hunger is truly low budget. In a film with basically one main set you would have thought that they would've spent a few bucks to make the walls look less fake? Hunger is a nasty piece of work with little entertainment value. But I can't say it doesn't work. The tale of one silent guy's personal macabre ant farm has some effective sequences and unexpected developments along the way, along with the gore and gross out stuff that the post-Saw crowd yearn for. In the main I found this as tasteful as Martyrs, but better made and more impactful.

Final Rating - 6 / 10. I didn't like Hunger but it worked. This low budget morbid Survivor via Saw clone has genuinely chilling elements that almost make you forgive the lack of logic in the last half hour.

Save yourself 1 hour 40 minutes of your life, this movie doesn't bring anything new the genre.

Weak plot, in fact, I've seen many movies with EXACTING the same storyline. I really don't know where do they get the budget to go over and over the same story lines.

No twists, predictable ending and the make up is not even according to day number x they're living, come on... you are in day number 23 and this charming blond one is with her shining Pantene hair looking radiant.

You are warned.

Basically, there are two kinds of cannibals featured in hundreds of human-eating-themed movies during the past century. Best broken down into the categories of "cannibals by choice" and "cannibals by necessity," many top films fall into one of these categories (as well as even more really poor ones). Note that for purposes of this discussion, one must forget all about the thousands of zombie movies (since zombies are no more human than vampires, werewolves, ALIEN-type extraterrestrials, mega-sharks, or any of a hundred other threats to mankind that lack objective, scientific proof for their existence). SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and EATING RAOUL are a couple of my favorite examples of cannibal-by-choice movies. On the other side, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES and A BOY AND HIS DOG are two of my best-loved cannibal-by-necessity films. HUNGER falls into the class of cannibal-by-necessity flicks, though the characters put into a totally implausible circumstance disagree among themselves as to whether the necessity justifies cannibal-by-murder (since there's also the option of waiting until someone dies of "natural" if unusual causes BEFORE starting to eat them). Unfortunately, what could have been a riveting movie in the hands of the directors of the four films referred to above comes off more like something directed by Ulli Lommel or Uwe Boll under Steven Hentges' control. Especially off-putting are all of the scenes featuring the mis-named character ("The Scientist") who is responsible for the rest of the cast's SAW-like predicament. The repetitious shots of this creep at his control board bring to mind Lommel at his worse, while the flashbacks to the pre-teen "scientist" eating his dead mom after an isolated car crash smacks of Boll at his most tawdry depths of exploitation.

Honestly, I thought this movie had potential, but fell short in one to many areas for me.

The idea of the movie is to have several people trapped in a hole with plenty of water, but no food. It turns into a fight for survival as the group must decide what they are going to do to survive. Considering what they are given in the beginning of the movie, it's not to hard to guess what.

I honestly liked the main villains motivation for experimenting on the people was good enough to work. The main idea of the movie is pretty interesting as well, dealing with a big fear of mine; an inevitable ending.

Now for the things I didn't like. The characters were HORRIBLE! I said the main villain had a decent motive, but I still hated him. About half way through, I just wanted all the characters to be killed. The acting, logic, and ending were really disappointing, leaving me feeling unsatisfied.

4/10

What will you do to survive? A group of people, trapped in a basement without food, are facing that very question.

It took 24 days before members of the group did the unthinkable to another member. All but Jordan (Lori Heuring) participated. How long will she hold out?

Surprisingly, after her hunger for food was satisfied, Anna (Lea Kohl in her debut) proceeded to satisfy another hunger with Grant (Linden Ashby).

A somewhat predictable ending, but the journey was very interesting. A trip worth taking.

Even though it's been done in different forms in other movies, this one actually presented more human behavior than gore. Of course the first movies comes to mind are the "Saw" series but there wasn't the challenges or choices, simply survival and human nature. While the people were all abducted by an obviously disturbed person, it could have as easily been about people stranded or trapped from natural causes or by accident. It did of course include the option of cannibalism and how long one could sustain from going that far, if indeed one would have to. It could have been way more gory and graphic but that wasn't the movie's intension. The acting wasn't bad and it didn't look low budget. The best part is that the story ended and didn't leave any opening for endless sequels or prequels, you have to give it credit for just that.

This was a simple film to produce: one set and 6 main actors. However, the concepts put forth are significant and worthy of our consideration. The plot involves 5 people placed into a dungeon with water but no food. The perpetrator and his motivation is initially unknown, but he is gradually revealed in various effective ways. The viewer is asked to observe these people as days pass. It is initially unclear why these particular people are brought together, but the reasons are also revealed during the course of the film.

The question asked is: what would we be willing to do to survive? I enjoyed the performances of these actors and found their characterizations to be interesting and complex. The filmmaker is very skilled in homing in on the facial expressions and behaviors of the actors. I felt pulled into the situation, continuously trying to guess which character would do what to whom.

I highly recommend this film to anyone who craves food for thought.

Resembled The Cube. Some people said Saw. Also a stinker called Breathing Room; with the same blonde as the winner of these hunger games. Gross, sick, tediously long; and relentlessly depressing. Seen on Tubi, the free streaming site, which abounds with low-budget indies.

This movie left me with more questions than the satisfaction of completion. She looked too good to have lasted that long without eating. There's something they aren't telling us.