A review of "Hunger"

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Hunger”

By: Brian Cotnoir

"Hunger" Alt. DVD Cover.

This film is definitely different, and I can think of a few ethical questions you could use to have an interesting dinner time conversation. The biggest questions’ this film brings up is “How long could you survive without food?” and “What would you be willing to do to survive”?    

“Hunger” was released in 2009 and tells the story of a scientist who kidnaps and imprisons 5 strangers in a cave with little light, no food, and only a couple hundred gallons of clean drinking water.  His motives for why he is doing this are not clear, but the group finds out that they are not the first group to go through this little “social experiment” and they begin to work frantically to do everything they can to survive.        

"Hunger" DVD Cover on Netflix

     First thing I should do is specify that if you want to search for this film you want to 2009 film recommended by Fangoria.  I only say this because there’s about a half-dozen films called (The) Hunger and I didn’t want people to get confused in their search.  Now, since that is all cleared up let me talk about the film.                                          

The film definitely has a good story idea.  It’s kind of like “Saw”, and it does make you think about how long you would last if you were put in that scenario.  Very early on the film is really dark and has very little lighting, and all you can really do is hear people’s voices as they wander through the caves.  It’s a really spooky effect and adds a lot of dramatic tension.  Also, I like the part where the victims all try to figure out why they were chosen for the experiment.  They don’t ever really establish a solid or set reason for why they were selected, but I think the film was trying to focus more on flushing out some character development and character relationship building.                                           

Doesn't She Look Lovely?

     The Person in Charge of this experiment is shown throughout the film, but he never speaks, and I viewed this as both a good and bad thing.  By not speaking at any point in the film it makes his character more mysterious and interesting.  My mind began wondering about this character’s background and what was his motivation for committing this sadistic experiment.  Unfortunately, we find out very little about him as a person, and his motivation is hardly touched upon.  Even when the film shows the events that led him to conduct this starvation experiment, I feel like it was a bit of a cop-out exposition that didn’t really make much sense.  I don’t think the event in his life that drove him to do this experiment was strong enough to the point where I could look at the film’s plot say, “Yes that is something that would motivate me to do the same”.      

For low-budget film it was fairly enjoyable, but it did leave you with a lot of unanswered questions.  I think as long as you keep your expectations for this film pretty low then you shouldn’t be too disappointed.