PLOT: After becoming lost in the Louisiana swamplands, a group of holidaymakers must fight for their lives against a rampaging hippo on the loose.
REVIEW: This year in particular, we have been absolutely inundated with shark movies. Thrash, Deep Water, and Chum have all been released in the past couple of months, with more on the horizon. When you want a killer animal, sharks are the obvious answer, despite not actually being man-eaters in real life. But there’s one animal that I’ve always felt would be perfect for this, since they kill significantly more people annually than sharks: Hippos. They are the absolute king of their domain, and can attack both by land and sea, making it the perfect horror villain. Hungry takes this concept and takes a much more serious route than you would expect.
Hungry follows a group as they head out in the Louisiana Bayou to see Alligators. Unfortunately for them, a deadly hippo has taken over part of the swamp, and is very territorial. They must fight to survive as they get picked off one by one. It’s the same setup we’ve seen for these kinds of movies time and time again. So it’s very important that the execution works. And the acting from the likes of Madison Davenport, Tracey Bonner, and Joaquim de Almeida is better than you would expect.
This takes the Jaws approach of not showing us the Hippo until well into the proceedings. I’m sure this was a budgetary decision, but it does help with the tension. I was actually surprised at just how long they wait to show the creature, and it doesn’t make much impact when it does actually appear. The kills are so quick and don’t have much impact. The Hippo just simply takes them down into the water. I feel like it’s a pretty big missed opportunity. The problem is that when the Hippo does show up, it never feels like an actual presence in the world. There’s no physical weight to it, and it feels disconnected from the characters themselves. Essentially dissipates the tension.
Despite taking place in the Louisiana swamps, Hungry was filmed in Malta in water tanks, and it’s very obvious. As someone who lived in Louisiana briefly, there is not one single moment where this feels like the bayou. It’s far too beautiful and doesn’t have nearly enough bugs. Most movies like this are filmed in water tanks, so I won’t hold that against it. In fact, it’s mostly handled pretty well in terms of the FX. It’s just hard not to notice the fact that they’re mostly in one location, with two fake trees.
I think when you go into a horror movie with a killer hippo that uses Hungry, Hungry Hippos in its marketing, you kind of expect some fun to be had. But Hungry always takes things very seriously and doesn’t seem to understand the absurdity of the situation. Adding a little bit of levity would have gone a long way but the film seems to think that being serious is more important than anything.
The worst thing that a killer animal movie can be is boring, and unfortunately, Hungry lacks a certain spark. The characters aren’t very interesting and the hippo feels very limited. I wish more movies would use Crawl as an example of how to make something serious that still knows how to have fun. Because with the concept of a hippo in the bayou, realism is already out the window, so why not lean into it? Instead, it seems to focused on staying in its lane
Hungry is now available to watch on VOD.
The post Hungry Review: A killer hippo film that takes itself too seriously appeared first on JoBlo.
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