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Hippos Get a ‘Jaws’ Makeover in Prime Video’s New Hit Thriller
Hungry, a low-budget thriller about New Orleans tourists stalked by a rampaging hippopotamus in the bayou, has quickly become popular on Prime Video in the United States. Its rise points to audience interest in animal-attack films, a genre with relatively few recent standouts.
The film ranked fourth among Prime Video’s top films and television programmes on Tuesday, and was the service’s second-most-watched film, behind Apocalypse Z: New World. It runs for 93 minutes; the article says the story explains how a hippo came to be loose in Louisiana, while noting the premise is far-fetched and the effects better than expected for its budget.
In short
- Hungry features tourists pursued by a rogue hippo in Louisiana.
- It ranked second among Prime Video films in the US.
- The 93-minute thriller offers a new animal-attack story.
Explained simply
Hippos are large, powerful animals native to Africa, and they are not part of Louisiana’s native wildlife. The state’s bayous are slow-moving wetlands, and New Orleans attracts visitors who take trips through them.
Animal-attack films build suspense around people facing danger from wildlife. The genre includes stories such as Jaws, which helped make a creature threatening people in a familiar setting a popular thriller premise.
The story draws on that tradition by imagining a hippo on the loose in Louisiana. Its appeal reflects continuing interest in animal-threat stories, even though the situation shown is far-fetched.