[Review}: Hungry

Courtesy of AURA Entertainment

Photo credit: Courtesy of AURA Entertainment

For a mammal that kills more people per year than sharks, lions, tigers, and what most people would consider dangerous animals, the hippo has been a criminally under utilized antagonist in the cinematic genre of feral nature gone wrong. Here’s where James Nunn’s Hungry enters the chat. When holiday makers go on a day trip to the bayou in Louisiana to see some crocodiles, what they don’t expect is to be attacked by a relentlessly territorial hippopotamus. 

Whilst vacationing in New Orleans to relieve herself from the pain of her mother’s illness and losing her job, Sistine (Madison Davenport) agrees to go on a tour of the nearby bayou with her best friend Hannah (Olivia Bernstone) in order to see some crocs. While on the waters with their tour group, they begin to notice the distinct lack of crocodiles, and are put into panic mode when the mutilated corpse of the infamous Big Ben croc is found. Before long, their tour guide is attacked by a giant hippo, and the group must do all they can to survive the attacks by this surprising creature not usually found in the Louisiana swamp.

Olivia Bernstone, Madison Davenport

Props have to be given to the filmmakers for taking an incredibly cute animal like the hippo and making it a violent and blood thirsty predator despite its habit as a herbivore. However, it doesn’t quite ignite the same amount of cinematic terror as say, a shark or crocodile does unfortunately. Even when the hippo is viciously mauling apart an innocent victim, one can’t help but think “aw, how cute”. 

The plot is very much a paint-by-numbers of a creature feature, with humans trapped in a location whilst being circled by a dangerous animal, and so fails to garner any real tension, although contrary to a typical nature gone wrong film, the acting by the central cast is competent. 

The novelty of a hippo being a vicious predator soon wears off after the first sighting of the creature, but it's not the worst film of its kind. Hungry plants itself firmly in the middle of the genre scale where the spectrum consists of Sharknado (2013) all the way up to Jaws (1975). 

2 Screams out of 5