Director: James Nunn
Screenplay: James Nunn
Starring: Madison Davenport, Tracey Bonner, Joaquim de Almeida, Michel Curiel, Samantha Coughlan, Olivia Bernstone, Jim Meskimen, River Codack
Country: USA
Running Time: 93 min
Year:Â 2026
BBFC Certificate: 15
Whilst vacationing in Louisiana, former gymnast Sistine (Davenport) is having a rough time. She’s recovering from a recent family trauma that’s left her deep in medical debt, only to be fired over the phone for daring to take a holiday. Fortunately, her friend Hannah (Bernstone) has booked them on an impromptu alligator tour, unaware that, amidst the swamps, there’s a far more surprisingly deadly creature awaiting them.
On paper, Hungry sounds like a joke. How do you adapt the plastic ball-collecting game in which the best strategy is to sit at a table that slopes towards you? It’s been a punchline for so long, it was one of the fake movies from the first season of The Afterparty, one of the best shows on Apple TV. The thing is though, this isn’t a board game adaptation, it’s merely been titled as such to lean into the marketing, which sadly undercuts the rest of the film and may leave viewers hoping for silliness somewhat disappointed. There’s literally several scenes in which we’re reminded that the hippos specifically do not want to eat the people. They aren’t even hungry!
Hungry is a reasonably effective, mostly sincere creature feature. The characters, script, cast and effects are all above average for this kind of film, and it’s a huge improvement on writer/director James Nunn’s earlier animal attack film, 2022’s Shark Bait, in which some of cinema’s most annoying characters get stranded on a jet ski, bickering over relationship melodrama whilst taking thoroughly too long to be eaten by a shark. Hungry has some great cinematography too, making excellent use of the large tank built for filming, and a mixture of a practical hippo head puppet from 13fingerfx and digital effects from Magic Dust VFX, who were actually given plenty of time to work on it and make something of good quality, almost unheard of these days for low budget monster movies!
Sometimes these kinds of films will spend the entire 85 minute runtime with three characters in a single tree, but here effort has clearly been made to mix things up and move the characters around, which is appreciated. It does take a frustratingly long time for the characters to ascertain what kind of creature they are dealing with, though. I understand that they are inside the movie, but as viewers it gets a little trying when multiple conversations occur debating what kind of animal could be responsible for the scenes they witness, when we know full well that this is a hippo movie, and they had a conversation with a guy about dangerous hippos not twenty minutes ago!
Amongst the cast, Jim Meskimen stands out as a kind Granddad and retired firefighter who falls naturally back into hero mode when disaster strikes, and Joaquim de Almeida is the Quint surrogate with a penchant for flares. Everyone performs well, and there’s really only one character who is truly grating for a long time, before a third act attempt to make them more sympathetic, right up until they double down on being awful. Aside from them, we get to know all the characters enough that when they start to be removed from the film, we really feel the loss. Sadly there’s not much variety in the means of exiting the narrative, and much of the gore is kept off screen. I’ve spent many an evening watching video compilations of hippos just pulverising watermelons in their mouths, but sadly there’s no scene where the same thing happens to an unwitting human’s head. I guess the hippos just weren’t that hungry hungry.
Hungry is available in the UK on Sky Cinema from 4th September 2026.