Craving (2023) - Highs and lows

I'm a big fan of low-budget gorefest 'Feast' which is about a bar full of people who are under siege from some monsters.  Nope, it certainly won't win any Oscars and was definitely not written by Shakespeare, but it was damn good fun.  And, if that's what you're looking for at the time, 'Feast' would fit the bill.

Here, in 'Craving,' there's a similar set-up - a group of strangers are barricaded up in a bar and there's a creature going to wreck havoc.  Okay, there are bits that are different.  Here, the bar is under siege from a group of people who say that there's actually a monster inside and they're there to kill it (or everyone inside in the process!).

One of the major differences is that there are a lot of 'explanation' flashbacks which tell you the backstory for various characters.  It does add more 'story' to 'Craving,' but the downside is that it does feel a bit like 'filler' and it tends to slow the movie down a bit.

But the performances are good and there are people here who are slightly different to the average cast of monster films, i.e. teenagers (played by twenty-somethings) who just run around screaming, so that's something, plus the special effects deserve a mention.  There's a lot of gore and the film-makers really lean into the 'splatter' in general, giving the film a bit of an 'over-the-top' feel.

There's definitely good points in this movie and it's worth a watch if you can find it on a streaming platform for part of your package, but it does get a bit confusing sometimes with all the 'reasons' why people are doing what they're doing and who they're double-crossing.  It may have just been better leaving it to be just a bar under siege from a monster.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights