'Hungry' (2026) Movie Review

When we think about hippos, a lot of us think of them as big, cute, cuddly goofs. They make excellent stuffed animals for a reason, after all. The reality, however, is they are actually ornery, territorial, startlingly fast on land and in water, and dangerous as all hell. There is no shortage of terrifying hippo videos on the internet; they are straight up terrifying. And now they are getting their due in the fun new hippos-on-a-rampage movie, Hungry. 

 

Writer/director James Nunn is most known for helming grounded lower-budget, tactical-heavy action films. The single-take One Shot trilogy, which wraps up (likely) later this year, is probably the biggest feather in his directorial cap. When he’s not busy staging intricately choreographed military maneuvers on screen, he’s been known to dabble in the nature-run-amok genre, notably with 2022’s Shark Bait, and he has a handle on what makes this type of movie entertaining and what people want out of an angry hippo movie bearing this particular title.

 

[Related Reading: 'Shark Bait' Movie Review]

Hungry is not exactly tongue-in-cheek, but it knows exactly what movie it is. For Christ's sake, the tagline is, “This hippo isn’t playing games.” A group of tourists in New Orleans venture out on an ill-advised gator tour in the Louisiana bayou. Nunn and company don’t waste much time with set up, and before long, they’re all on a boat, in the middle of a swamp, with things going wrong all around them. 

 

Nothing unexpected happens, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t worth watching. Nunn’s script knowingly hits all the beats, which may sound familiar, but it plays them well. (The recent horror movie, Whistle, is a good comparison; genre fans generally know what’s going to happen, but it’s still a good time.) Tension abounds, and while the characters aren’t the deepest or most nuanced, there’s plenty of heightened melodramatic interpersonal drama to go around, and they get the job done before moving on to become cannon fodder. In a personal favorite trope, Joachim de Almeida (Road House, Fast Five) shows up early as the local harbinger of doom with the ominous warning that, “The only cute hippo is a dead hippo.” It’s hard not to smile at that. 

 

[Related Reading: 'Whistle' Movie Review]

A creature feature like this lives and dies on the monster, and, especially given the monetary restraints, this delivers a strong animal antagonist. For much of the picture, Nunn smartly uses the Jaws, less-is-more approach, for both budgetary and psychological reasons. He plays with depth-of-field and focus; we’ll see movement in the water in the background, or a big lumbering, looming shape we can’t quite make out. In higher action moments, the monster is often obfuscated in a rush of action, splashing water, or cleverly edited around. And when hiding is not an option, the film employs a largely practical approach, augmented with CGI, that gives the beast a concrete, tangible presence and weight many cheaper monster movies lack. 

 

Along with the strong creature effects, Nunn and cinematographer Job Reineke (One More Shot), craft a slick, nice looking film. They make excellent use of the endless expanse of bayou to drive home the isolation and desperation of the characters' plight, and the meticulously constructed swamp sets fit seamlessly into the natural photography.

 

[Related Reading: 'Primal' Movie Review]

Hungry doesn’t blaze any new trails, rewrite any formulas, or any of those oft-used cliches, but it never tries to. James Nunn and company set out to make a tense, fast-paced, action-heavy fight-for-survival movie with a fun hook, and they deliver exactly what they set out to do. This is a damn good time and one of the better animals-running-wild in a year that has already seen a ton of them. [Grade: B]