Hey there, creature-feature fiends. If you’re tired of the same old sharks, bears, and gators hogging the genre spotlight, it’s time to update your phobia list. A new apex predator is throwing its considerable weight around on Digital right now, and it answers to one name: Hungry.
That’s right. Move over, Jaws. Horror is finally giving us what we actually deserve: killer hippos.
This Isn’t Your Childhood Board Game
Despite the title, Hungry is absolutely not a whimsical, live-action adaptation of the Hasbro game you played as a kid. There are no colorful plastic marbles here—only tragedy, terror, and a whole lot of missing limbs.
The plot kicks off in classic horror fashion: a group of thrill-seeking tourists boards a riverboat tour through the Louisiana swamplands. Lured by the promise of an “exclusive adventure”—which, in horror movie speak, translates directly to “congratulations, you are now a buffet”—the group ends up way off the map and very much on the menu. They soon find themselves hunted by a creature Hollywood has criminally overlooked until now.
The Creative Muscle (Behind the Meat Grinder)
Director James Nunn (One Shot trilogy) is at the helm, and he’s assembled a stellar cast of talented actors to be chewed on. Fighting (and let’s be real, likely failing) to survive are Madison Davenport (Sharp Objects), Joaquim de Almeida (Road House), and Tracey Bonner (The Exorcism). You can watch our interview with the director and cast below.
If the kills look sickeningly realistic, you can thank Dan Martin. He’s the prosthetic makeup wizard behind Infinity Pool and Possessor—two films famous for making audiences collectively reach for the nearest barf bag. If Nunn provides the cinematic vision, Martin provides the absolute viscera.
Why Hippos? Meet the Murder Potato.
The movie is titled Hungry, which is actually a bit of a creative liberty, considering hippos are technically vegetarians. They don’t want to eat your salad, but they will absolutely delete your existence.
Suppose you aren’t already terrified of these massive river-monsters. Here is some nightmare fuel for thought:
The Ultimate Kill Streak: Statistically, hippos are the deadliest large land mammals in Africa, killing more people annually than lions and elephants combined. They are aggressively, psychotically territorial. They don’t want to digest you; they want you to stop breathing in their general vicinity.
The Hydraulic Press of the Animal Kingdom: A hippo’s bite force is a bone-crushing 1,800 PSI. For comparison, a Grizzly’s bite is only 975 PSI. In other words, there’s no surviving a full-body bite.
Absolute Units: These enormous killers weigh between 1,200 and 3,800 pounds. That’s not an animal; that’s a Honda Civic with tusks. If one accidentally sits on you, your next of kin will need a spatula. To top it off, they are super territorial, which makes this chunky potato super dangerous.
Deceptive Speed: Do not let the roundness fool you. They might look like bloated, soft water-pigs, but that “blubber” is actually dense, powerful muscle. And they can easily outrun a human on land.
That urge you feel to “boop the snoot”? Fight it unless you want your funeral to be a closed-casket affair featuring whatever bits the park rangers can scrape off the grass.
A New Fear Unlocked
As Signature Entertainment’s EVP Ella Field puts it, a “very real fear will be unlocked” with this release. We’ve spent decades being afraid of Great Whites and swamp gators, but it’s about time we respected the four-ton tank with a mouth that opens wide enough to swallow a beach ball whole.
In other words: Don’t mess with hippos, or you’re going to find yourself in a world-class, history-making “Fuck Around and Find Out” situation. But feel free to enjoy the carnage from afar. Hungry is available on Digital platforms now. Grab some popcorn, lock your doors, and stay away from the water.
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