Review: Hungerford

12th May 2014

By Gabriella Incalza Kaplanova.

Hungerford, starring Tom Scarlett, Georgia Bradley, Sam Carter and the director himself, Drew Casson, paints a visceral portrait of a small English town taken over by extraterrestrial forces.

Cowen Rosewell is a Media BTEC student who lives with a small group of friends in a scruffy flat. His first assignment is to record everything that happens in a week of his life. At first, Cowen dismisses the random acts of violence he witnesses. It takes for one of his best friends to be savagely attacked by a stranger for him to realize something is not quite as it is meant to be.

Shot in nine days “solid, during the hottest week of the year”, Hungerford’s filming turned out to be “the most intense, crazy, overwhelming days of my life”, says its director Drew Casson.

When 19-year old Casson casually mentioned at the BFI screening during the 14^th London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film that he has been making movies since he was 12, I must admit, I did smile to myself and dismiss it instantly. Until I went and checked it out for myself and discovered that the film director has posted over 100 videos seen by nearly 3 million people on Youtube, his channel counts over nine thousand subscribers and features early special effects videos where his currently long, blonde curly locks are quite short and he is, unmistakably, a very online casino young boy.

In the past five years, Drew Casson has indeed been quite busy. But what is impressive is the maturity he has already achieved as a filmmaker and his first feature length movie can only but testify the talent behind such a creative teenager.

Luckily, Casson was noticed by talent incubator Wildseed Studios and its creative director Jesse Cleverly. “Drew is typical of the next-generation of film makers we’re investing in – a generation who have grown up on genre movies, who operate outside the institutions of the British Film Industry, and who are utterly fearless and highly proficient with the tools of production and post-production in the pursuit of excitement, scale and an audience. We’re thrilled to have produced Hungerford and thanks to the ingenuity of Drew, the crew and excellent special effects, this micro-feature achieves a sense of scale more fitting for a film with 100 times the budget.”

Hungerford has indeed a big movie feel and should not be judged by the age of its director or by its modest budget, but on the quality of its special effects and its growing and gripping pace.

No release date has been announced yet, however Hungerford is due to be screened at various film festivals this summer. For more info, check www.hungerfordfilm.com

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