Hunger   Starring: Lori Heuring, Linden Ashby and Joe Egender Lions Gate Home Entertainment RRP: £12.99 LGD94304 Certificate: 18 Available 27 June 2011

Three men and two women wake up, initially in complete darkness, to discover they are trapped underground. They are complete strangers to each other, but find that they have something in common. In this small area of rooms and passageways all that they possess are some containers of water and their wits. There is no food, and a strange clock on the wall begins to count down thirty days. Then one of them discovers a knife...

There has been several films of this ilk in recent years; the first Saw, Psyche, The Hole, and My Little Eye - to name just a few. However, in format, if not style, it more closely emulates situations from Cube. There is a tenuous link between these strangers, though it has very little significance in the great scheme of things. It could really be any handful of individuals, as this is more about the human spirit than anything else. A battle of need versus morals; which is stronger, the physical body or the mind?

The entire modus operandi hinges on the watcher. An early flashback of him as a boy, having survived a car accident at a remote location, in which his mother dies, rather needlessly gives away his purpose in studying the captives on camera from his house nearby. I so much wanted to hate this film, so that I could go on Hunger strike, but the truth is it’s really not that bad - just nothing special to write home about. The cannibalistic scenes on which the movie creates its reveal are thankfully low-key, rather than zombie-graphic, leaving a greater implication to what is happening.

Nevertheless, I don’t believe this film would work half as well were the characters not so diverse. We have the timid loner (yes, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right), the extrovert woman, the sensible woman, the alpha-male pack leader, and the outright violent rebel. The conclusion is clever from the point of view of the captive in question, but downright ridiculously stupid of the watcher - no matter how important it is to him to have his own behaviour justified.

5

Ty Power