Hungerford
Hungerford
| 03 May 2014 (USA)
Hungerford Trailers

The lives of a group of teenagers are turned upside down when their town is taken over by sinister forces.

Reviews
ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Andariel Halo I skipped over this title after seeing the inexplicable tag "Teen Screams", then went on to watch "The Darkest Dawn", which I only realized afterwards was actually a sequel to this film. So I went back to watch this film. As such, my experience with this film is colored by having seen the sequel first. Despite this, the two turn out to be entirely different types of movies, which leads to a severe disconnection between the two films. While "The Darkest Dawn" focuses on being an alien invasion type movie all throughout, in this the alien invasion angle is only revealed at the very end, although the "bug" infesters are present from virtually the beginning. As such, the emphasis is entirely on the infested people, causing them to behave like zombies, basically, only with the intention of capturing people wherever possible. Meanwhile, the "zombie" people are an extremely minimal part of "The Darkest Dawn" as almost all the real threats come from other humans struggling to survive. The zombie people are almost never present in "The Darkest Dawn", whereas in this film, they are practically swarming in many areas. The backstory I got in "The Darkest Dawn" in terms of Cowen and the group losing Philippa and having encountered the soldier commander guy, was extremely minimal and thus was good for letting one's imagination run wild. With those events filled in by this film (which came first), it only causes even more massive plot holes in the sequel. Namely, we don't know how or why the soldier commander guy got separated from Cowen's group, or how Philippa just happened to end up reuniting with the soldier commander guy. Another utterly massive plothole thrown by the film involves fighting the zombies. In "The Darkest Dawn", the only way to stop them, it seems, is a brief blood transfusion from someone with type O negative blood in order to prevent the alien bug from taking control. This also means the infested person needs multiple transfusions to continuously put down the alien bug. Meanwhile here in "Hungerford", all it takes is a quick spray to the face with an aerosol deodorant, and not only is the zombie person incapacitated, but the alien bug actually leaves their body and tries to escape. How they somehow forgot this fact between the two films is one that I feel could ruin the sequel for people who view "Hungerford" first. Since I saw the sequel first, this ruined "Hungerford" for me. Beyond the links to its sequel, this film was just boring throughout. Nothing particularly new or interesting was done with its zombies or infestation methods. Events are painfully predictable, and none of the characters are strong or charismatic enough to carry the film. "The Darkest Dawn" made the wise decision to continue the story of "Hungerford" while framing it from the point of view of a new and unrelated character who is much more interesting and charismatic. Unfortunately, this film as it stands on its own, is just bad.
Leofwine_draca HUNGERFORD is a tiny budgeted found footage science fiction horror film made in Britain. The worst thing about it is the youthful cast, all of whom are quite obviously in their first acting job and who come across as very wooden and unconvincing as a result. When the script tries for characterisation it falls flat, with the protagonists a group of idiotic weed smokers who take an age to figure out what's going on around them. However, the alien invasion plot, while familiar, is quite well achieved. There's a mix of graphic bug body invasion horror a la SLITHER along with some taken over people straight out of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. The second half of the film in particular really picks up the pace and features a ton of action, reminding me of BUSHWICK a little.
teamtoxicstudios I had hopes for this B grade movie but after watching 30 minutes or so I realized I was to generous with the "B Grade".Bad acting, bad actors, especially the lead actor who was so over dramatic in some scenes it bordered on sickening.Bad direction thorough out the film especially the car crash scene, and way to many more to mention.The director who I just found out is the lead actor as well (That answers a lot of questions) should really look for another line of work as Directing is definitely not his strong suit.I could keep going with what is wrong with this film but it's really not even worth my time complaining about it.
HorrorOverEverything So I'll be the first to say that most found footage movies are stinkers. It has become the genre that film makers go to when they don't have a very original idea and want to make a film for a low amount of money. I tend to avoid them but "Hungerford" caught my eye with it's trailer and I am very glad I checked it out.The story starts off like most found footage flicks, we are introduced to our main characters and are given an explanation as to why they are filming everything, in this case it is a class project. I quickly noticed a difference in the characters in this flick as opposed to most films in this genre, they actually seemed like real people. It wasn't your usual group of beautiful people with wooden personalities, this actually felt like a real group of friends and it made me actually care about what happened to them.The action gets going very fast, and once it does the movie does not let up until the credits start rolling. Unlike a lot of other found footage films, a good chunk of this film takes place during the day which means they do not hold back on showing you everything that is going on. There are not a lot of camera cutaways or shaky running when things get going, you get a front seat view to all the bloody action. The effects were actually pretty well done considering the movies budget.The film does have its flaws as well. There were some moments where the dialogue was very cheesy and felt unrealistic. Plus I felt like the last 1/4th of the movie felt a little rushed.Overall though this was a pretty fun movie. It never dragged or felt dull and it didn't feel like another generic mediocre found footage cash in. I recommend giving it a go.7/10