It Hungers (2018)

 

It Hungers has been on my radar for the last couple of years, but until now has always remained one elusive step ahead of me.  Cursed with distribution problems, It Hungers briefly showed up on Amazon Prime in Australia, but to date its only appearance on physical media has been a 2019 DVD release in the Netherlands.  In theory this should have made the film relatively easy to track down, in practice...well.  Attempting to order it from the Dutch version of Amazon proved to be a dead end, when it turned out that they were unable to ship copies to the UK.  Personally reaching out to its Dutch distributor, Just Entertainment, also came to nothing, when it transpired that due to a licensing agreement they were only able to sell their DVD release to people based in the Netherlands or Belgium.  Fortunately this embargo on It Hungers was recently broken, with imported copies of the Dutch DVD showing up on Amazon UK and Ebay.  Thus enabling people outside of Holland and Belgium to witness a badass babe being pitted against an evil assed clown.

Don’t be put off by a title that suggests a copycat production attempting to ride on the coattails of It Follows and the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s It, It Hungers is far from just your standard killer clown movie, and instead looks to folk horror and grindhouse cinema for inspiration.  A passion project for singer, model, actress and ‘outright hustler’ Stormi Maya, whose X-rated contributions to popular music includes the likes of ‘Cannabis Cunt’ and ‘Fake Assed Titties’.  It Hungers is very much the house that Stormi built, with this entrepreneurial young lady having acted as producer, raised the finances, found a screenwriter, cast the film, shaved her hair, donned a wig and spent a month at an isolated shooting location cut off from civilisation.   Less a case of Stormi Maya, and more Stormi May-Have-Had-To-Do-Everything.  

Among the many hats Maya wore on the production was that of lead actress, playing Rachel, a stripper who has made off with a hundred grand of C.I.A drop money.  Heading deep into woodlands, with two cops on her tail, Rachel is taken in by Pris, a nervous, unstable, child-like woman who lives in a castle.  There Pris tirelessly serves Master Dominus, a descendant of an ancient race that existed on earth before mankind.  As Master Dominus can only survive on human flesh that has been flooded by the stress hormone Cortisol, he and Pris summon up a demonic clown by the name of Tormentum, whose purpose is to scare the Cortisol out of everyone.

Stormi Maya certainly looks hot stuff in her 1970s throwback attire, which at times borders on Regina Carrol cosplay.  However she frequently has the film stolen from under her by Swedish actress Karin Brauns, whose wild, throw-caution-to-the-wind performance as Pris fully embraces the lunacy of the material.  What with her cute Swedish accent- I love the way she says “vegetables from the garden”- and jittery, unstable demeanour, Brauns’ performance is akin to watching Agnetha from ABBA impersonating Dwight Frye’s Renfield, and reveals a whole different side to Brauns’ acting ability than her comparatively reserved and straight laced performances in ‘The Obsidian Curse’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Deadwood’.  Making it all the more sad that we’re never going to see any further Karin Brauns performances, the actress passing away from heart failure in 2022 at the shockingly young age of 32.  Godspeed, Karin Brauns.

In its corner It Hungers also boasts one creepy clown in the form of Tormentum, with some fine body acting from J.D. Angstadt that conveys the mannerisms of a creaky, convulsing corpse that has been hastily brought back to life.  Had lady luck smiled brighter on the film, distribution wise, then Tormentum would be the subject of his own franchise and action figure by now.  Master Dominus, a character who spends the entirety of the movie dressed in a suit of armour and a crow-like mask, is another strong and unique element to It Hungers.  The mask necessitated by the fact that Pris’ purity and selflessness produces a body odour that is particularly offensive to Master Dominus’ race.  Dominus’ diatribes to Rachel about the outside world are straight out of H.P. Lovecraft “one day the forest will reclaim the land and new life will grow over every thread of evidence that these primates ever walked this earth, there have been other creatures, far more advanced creatures that this world crushed beneath its weight mercilessly”.     

 

A quite literally Stormi production, It Hungers is a twice orphaned film that went through two different directors, both of whom elected to have their names taken off the final film.  Their work being credited to the pseudonymous ‘D.R. Vonn’.  However, as a film made in the era of social media, posts by various cast and crew members have left a virtual paper trail of who did what and when.  Film Director 1# (to reveal his real identity would be to unleash Havoc, and may even be the Kiss of Death) was still being credited in that capacity up until around March 2018 before his name stopped being associated with the film.   By September 2018, Film Director 2# was at the helm, before his name too disappeared from social media posts about It Hungers.  According to an on-set insider, Film Director 1# “walked away from money, that’s a big deal.  Not sure of the reason but he hasn’t worked with Stormi since then”.  Understand that Film Director 1# is a blue collar filmmaker with a family to support, and wouldn’t be one to walk away from work and money without serious justification. 

As it was made by two directors, at different time periods, the quality of It Hungers does fluctuate.  Exterior scenes are disappointingly bland, bordering at times on amateurish, and therefore are unlikely to have been the work of Film Director 1#.  Since his other horror films display an eye for the American wilderness and a talent for using the woodlands of California to its maximum potential.  A quality that unfortunately isn’t in evidence here.  On the other hand, It Hungers ups its game once the film moves indoors.  Scenes set in Master Dominus’ domain are heads above the rest of the movie in terms of style and professionalism. One, involving Master Dominus rolling a crystal ball down the stairs to Pris, only for it to be intercepted by Tormentum, wouldn’t shame a Dario Argento or Mario Bava movie. 

While It Hungers sounds like a ‘director for hire’ gig for Film Director 1#, by accident or design, it still retains many of his key themes.  A distrust of authority –the two cops on Rachel’s trail turn out to be crooked- and  distain for a modern world that has turned its back on culture and nature...Master Dominus is an obvious mouthpiece for Film Director 1# in that respect.  A liberal baiting insistence on female nudity is another hallmark of Film Director 1#.  At one point, Pris attempts to breastfeed a doll, while Rachel is the subject of a long shower scene that gives even the most horndog minded of 1980s horror film a run for its money.  Indeed, Stormi Maya’s nude shower scene was evidentially judged such a selling point that it appears twice in It Hungers.  Once in its proper narrative context in the film, and also as a pre-opening credits teaser of what’s to come (in fairness it is a scene that grabs your attention).  

For all the female flesh on display, and the grindhouse influences, It Hungers remains true to Film Director 1#’s oeuvre by also having a strong sense of morality at its core.  Rachel has to carry the burden of introducing Pris to vanity, dancing and greed.  A corrupting influence that renders Pris less smelly to Master Dominus, and with Pris no longer giving off the aroma of purity and selflessness, she is earmarked as a potential lunch for Master Dominus.  “I never wanted to eat her...until now” admits Dominus.  At the same time, Rachel is forced into becoming a better, less selfish, person, in order to smell bad to a Lovecraftian creature, who otherwise would seek to cannibalise her. 

As you should be able to tell by now, It Hungers is one of those movie experiences that leaves you asking ‘which way is up?’ and questioning what you are seeing with your own eyes.  Did they really repeat the shower scene twice?  Did I really see Pris impersonate a rabbit and hop up a flight of stairs? Is there really a scene where Stormi runs backwards in slow motion, her big boobs bouncing around all over the place.  Catching the attention of a horny guy, whose pursuit of her is slightly speeded up, a la Benny Hill.  Just when you think It Hungers has nothing more to give, it goes all Hal Needham with comedy outtakes being worked into the end credits (tip to Film Director 2#, if you plan to take your name off a movie make sure the final product doesn’t include outtakes in which your name is still visible on the clapperboard). 

It Hungers then does something I’ve never seen another movie do, by incorporating an interview with the lead into the end credits...as Stormi pops up to tell you about the trials and tribulations she went through to make the movie.  As well as her regret over wearing a wig in the movie and how she is now an advocate for natural, black hair.  Indeed Maya has since gone on to cultivate an impressively enormous afro...suffice to say you wouldn’t want to be sat behind Stormi Maya in a movie theatre.  Under normal circumstances having the lead actress break character and do an interview for the end credits, would be tearing up the rules of filmmaking, but with It Hungers it feels right that a walk-through explanation was needed for what has to be one of the most eccentric American horror films to come along in some time.  It Hungers....you are fucking nuts...and I’m glad to finally make your acquaintance.