Hunger (2009)

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.