Considering how similarities these movies are. Despite the fact no one was involved with both of them. Usually you'll get one parody movie then that's it. For some odd reason, we ended up with two somewhat similar not great parody movies that makes you rather watch the very movies they're parodying. The Starving Games and The Hungover Games, yeah you already can tell what we're in for.
A few months a part in release too. Keep in mind, most parody movies doesn't do well. In fact, parody videos ends up being way better in comparison. I will say there's some good parody movies out there like Spaceballs. Sadly we aren't here to talk about movies like those. We're actually here to suffer through two particular parody movies that took shots at The Hunger Games to only kept missing!!!
The Starving Games came out first on Halloween 2013, a strange release date choice. The Hungover Games came out in early to mid February. I should point out The Hungover Games also heavily parodying The Hungover movies too. Of course, parody movies does make front of other franchises with these being no exception.
They really tried being fun with these jokes but mostly it isn't funny. I actually thought Robot Chicken doing The Hunger Games style Smurf sketch was way better. They tried parodying The Hunger Games directly at the original movie. As expected, some similar story occurs with some changes being mess up. The Hungover Games attempted to combine the plot to The Hunger Games with The Hungover.
If you seen The Hungover, you know it's about a group of guys who got drugged. Thus they had a crazy night while losing track of their friend whose suppose to get married. I don't know why would anyone consider mix the two movies into a parody movie is beyond me. The Starving Games does a parody of two particular movie groups you'll know incredibly well.
The Expendables later followed by The Avengers. The Hungover Games goes even crazier with each district being direct parodies of something else. One district is a parody of The Long of the Rings franchise. Another district is a parody of horror movie characters like Carrie. They even made a direct parody district of Johnny Depp characters too, yeah try wrapping your head around that.
Speaking of The Avengers, they're also parodied as another district in The Hungover Games too. Of course, one of the guys falls in love with Katnip Everlean. The other parody of her in The Starving Games is named Kantmiss Evershot. They also parodied The Hobbit franchise as well. By now you can already tell how similar these movies are.
In The Starving Games, Kantmiss goes through the event with notable changes from The Hunger Games. The Hungover Games does follow that but more focuses on The Hungover story. Thus, the guys are the main characters rather than Katnip. Their versions of The Hunger Games plays out in similar fashion.
All of them gets a training period before they go to the arena to face each other to the death. Considering these are parody movies, don't be surprise how mess up some moments gets. In The Hungover Games, a parody of Ted beats a man with a baseball bat. One of these movies actually made it to theaters as well as on streaming services the same day.
The Starving Games you can tell the people behind it didn't like The Hunger Games very much. I'm still more confused with The Hungover Games. If you are new to parody movies, you should know they do move through some sections of the story faster on purpose. Sometimes, if you're lucky a great joke comes up.
I say both these movies went the distance with their ideas. Honestly, there isn't many positives I can say other than I don't have to watch em anymore!!! I rather watch Scary Movie 1, which actually felt like a great parody of the Scream movies but had some great jokes in there too. You can use jokes pulling from other things as well it's fun.
Sadly, both movies really tried hard to be entertaining. They don't even waste any time getting to the mess up stuff either. I don't wanna say they're low budget parodies. Actually in The Starving Games' case I can't say that because it actually made a few million dollars, way more than The Hungover Games. Which made a little over $330,000, sadly terrible numbers.
It's strangely amusing on IMDB website going by ratings, The Hungover Games got a slightly higher rating. I never say neither movie was a home run. I do wanna say this however they fell into the usual reason why most parody movies doesn't work. Now if they would've chosen to do a short video or even a video series then these would've turned out way better with greater amount of people watching.
I know I'm not mentioning other characters from The Hunger Games. To be quite honest, some of them doesn't even appear in the other movie. The biggest actor to show up in one of these was Jamie Kennedy. To be fair, he has recovered from some bad movies he's done in the past. Mostly Son of the Mask, yeah don't even think about looking it up.
Another thing to expect is plenty of stupid moments. I am going to be honest, Shaun of the Dead & Bloodsucking Bastards had a rather refreshing take on parody their genders. Same can also be said for a personal favorite of mine, Eight Legged Freaks!!! I know I kept bringing up better parody movies. Sometimes you got to be reminded what's actually decent to something that sucks, well two in this case.
The Starving Games does seem slightly higher quality. The Hungover Games comes more off like if they were mess up before. Then they are surprised to even be alive at all. It's almost like they got drugged then suddenly popped up somewhere else like The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland. The entire point of parody movies is making front of something else to give people a good time.
We got two parodies that not only missed the mark, quite a bit in fact. But also tried nailing shots to other things to kept missing those too. They do make front of several critical moments. Keep in mind, some those moments aren't present in both movies. You know the usual, you got selected to fight for your life while the world watches.
In the end, unless you wanted to see something slightly different. You may not enjoy either movie here. Hell I still got a few parody movies I could throw out. Both movies could be considered as mockbusters. For those that doesn't know what that is. Everyone knows what a blockbuster is right? A great film you can easily rewatch.
Some companies either make parody movies or cash in bad movies based on those movies. Thank god they aren't quite mockbuster quality. If you wanna say mockbuster quality, you likely know about Snakes on an Plane right? Have you ever heard of Snakes on an Train? Yeah it's very bad, easily one of the absolute worst snake movies I had the displeasure of seeing.
At least they got that going for them. One of them was still considered a success in it's own right. Let's be honest, you likely easily confuse the two movies as well. Which partly plays into how mockbusters works. Blockbusters are great movies in theaters while mockbusters are direct to video. Which so happens to hit stores right around the very movie they're attempting cash in on.
In other words, if you are looking through DVDs in a store. You should pay better attention or you could end up wasting money on any mockbuster films. Now you can kinda see why I partly considered these parody movies as mockbusters of The Hunger Games movies. This is an example of questionable marketing strategy with Jaws kept getting mockbuster films to this day.
Even in that regard, both these movies is notably better than those bad shark movies. Honestly, The Starving Games does make more direct fun of The Hunger Games characters. The Hungover Games even made The Hungover 3 way better than it actually was lol. It's quite clear you shouldn't watch either movie even if you are a huge fan of The Hunger Games.
Unless, you rather enjoy suffering through some poorly done jokes. I actually seen episodes of several shows parodied other things way better too. If shows can do it then why can't parodies work as movies anymore? I think the real reason is both these movies virtually got rushed out but likely didn't even knew about the other movie prior.
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