EDITORIAL

What Looks Worse: THE STARVING GAMES or THE HUNGOVER GAMES?

By Matt Oakes · December 6, 2013

For all the praise The Hunger Games franchise has received (and count me amongst the many fans of the series), the second installment is now single-handedly responsible for not one, but two spin-off “comedies.” The first, so cleverly titled The Starving Games, throws wedgies, Hobbits, The Avengers, LMFAO, Apple products, Angry Birds and a horny Gandalf into the Hunger Games formula that makes a 2 minute and 27 second trailer look like a life time. The internet collectively sighed at the trailer’s debut and condemned it to the worst corner of film hell. If you dare, take a peek at this monstrosity.

Thankfully, audiences also seemed to have enough of Jason Friedman and Aaron Seltzer (Vampires Suck, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie) notoriously lazy brand of comedy as when The Starving Games opened last month (November 8) it made less than $10,000 and barely saw ten theaters. Such a face-first wipeout would make you think that Ketchup Entertainment and their intellectually sleazy cohorts would catch the hint and start leaving these spoofers in the dumpster where they belong but no, as the second Hunger Games ripoff is well on its way in the form of The Hungover Games. Because we all know that you’ve been wondering what would happen if you took the wolf pack and threw them in with Katniss.

This time the spoof net is even wider, and arguably more lazy, with nods to just about everything in the mere periphery of pop culture rears its head in this ugly, ugly looking film. From Jack Sparrow to Tonto, Ted to Django, race jokes to housewives, Carrie and, oh yeah, The Avengers again, it’s amazing just how non-topical some of these references can be. The saddest part of this whole thing is to see Tara Reid and Jamie Kennedy‘s names thrown in the mix as if those two really are going to get people to see the film.

More than anything, I just wonder who goes to see these films.Friedberg and Seltzer, amazingly enough, tend to break 30 million dollars domestically usually working off a budget of around 20 million. So the profits are small but just sizable enough to give them something to do every couple years or so. I just want to plead with the audiences who are actually seeing these abominations to stop seeing them. It’s not like they enjoy them, right? (Please God, I hope no one enjoys them)

So which of these two do you think looks worse? I know they’re both horrendous but one might have a leg up on the other in terms of being unbelievably shitty. Further, what is the worse spoof movie you’ve ever seen? And finally, if you know anyone who admits to seeing these, just do them a favor and steal ten bucks from their wallet.

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