Hungerford
May. 03,2014The lives of a group of teenagers are turned upside down when their town is taken over by sinister forces.
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Just what I expected
Don't listen to the negative reviews
The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
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.
Anyone who has read 'This Book Contains Spiders' will immediately think that idea is completely stolen from the above book mentioned by David Wong. Where spiders enter a human neck and takes control of its brain.Otherwise the film entertaining enough
This movie was so amazing- especially on a limited budget. Don't believe the critics. I think the director did amazing job with the resources he had. I'm always looking for awesome low budget sci-fi movies and this was an awesome find. The actors were great and believable and the special effects really well done considering the budget. I'd highly recommend watching this movie.
A bunch of housemates live in the English town of Hungerford . One day a strange electrical storm strikes the town . The housemates think nothing of it but a couple of days later the inhabitants start acting strangely More found footage a subgenre this reviewer got bored with a long time ago . That said director Drew Casson and his co-writer Jess Cleverly have make a film that while it initially didn't appeal to me didn't have me scrambling for the off button when I got in to it . Indeed for a film that has no budget , an amateur cast and whose cinematography is confined to one single camera being waved about HUNGERFORD has much more entertainment value that it has any right to which says a lot about it . Much of the impact is down to the story starting quickly with an effective image of a storm of sorts which considering the non existent budget is very well done . The storm is an unexplained transportation method for alien parasites that take over their human hosts similar to THE PUPPET MASTERS then it's zombie horror all the way . Yeah it's far from original but what it does it does very well . Some things don't entirely work like deodorant being used as a bug spray and Casson and co miss a trick in not using radio reports for exposition in order to wrench up tension as more and more people succumb to the aliens . Since HUNGERFORD is so self assured I often found myself wondering if the production might have been better off doing a more conventional film and abandoning the found footage concept all together