I’m almost always game for a cheapo, nature-gone-wild movie, especially one involving sharks. This year has already seen a wild amount of animal-attack films. In the first six months we’ve had Primate, Thrash, Deep Water, Killer Whale, and just this week the hippo-rampage adventure Hungry. I feel like I’m even forgetting a few, but you get the point. And there are at least a handful more still scheduled to release in 2026. All of this brings us to Chum, which is dire, nonsensical, and borderline competent.
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 scary. And now they are getting their due in the fun new hippos-on-a-rampage movie, Hungry.
2026 came out of the gate swinging when it comes to animals-running-violently-amok movies. There’s the ape-attack-centric Primate, and now this weekend’s Killer Whale from writer/director Jo-Anne Brechin. If you read our most-anticipated movies of 2026 list, you know this is one of three potential killer whale action/horror movies we may see this year. I haven’t seen Primate yet, but there’s plenty of fun chatter about it. Killer Whale, on the other hand, isn’t great, unfortunately.
Fung Chih-Chiang’s A Witness Out of the Blue has all the earmarks of a classic Hong Kong crime saga. There’s murder, slick production values, a twisting plot, shades of moral ambiguity, standoffs, shootouts, and a parrot. Wait, what?
When you think crocodiles and Australians in movies, odds are your mind turns immediately to a man named Dundee and his rather large knife. That, however, is not the only game in town. Case in point, director Andrew Traucki’s Black Water: Abyss, a cave-spelunking, croc-fighting tale of claustrophobia and survival that watches a bit like a synthesis of The Descent and Crawl.
I get talking to your pets. I talk to mine more than to
other people, way more. As a future hermit who is eventually going to die and
be eaten by my animal friends before my neighbors complain about the stench,
this trailer for Ryan Reynolds' dark indie comedy The Voices
truly speaks to me, as it were.