The Hunger (1983)

Brilliant and touching

Absolutely brilliant

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

My buddy came over the other night and we watched like a real movie, but then it was late and the busses had stopped running and we had to find something to do until like 5am when they started running again. So he found this movie and was like "Hey lets watch this s--t" and I was all, "Ok, but it's pretty much just like a two hour music video," which is how I remembered it being, and then we watched it and I totally stand by that evaluation. Also, the last time I watched this movie I had to turn it off because the person I watched it with had a seeing-blood-thing, and oh man do you see some blood in this movie. Jesus. Also you have to look at David Bowie in old man makeup for way too long. And not just like, a two hour music video, but a two hour *early eighties* music video. Like, you know those music videos where it just feels like it's a fashion shoot, but instead of taking pictures they just film some woman in an empty room wearing something weird with like sheets blowing in the background? Like that. But like a movie. Also monkeys screaming over and over and over.

Before he was pumping out heavily stylised action films such as Top Gun (1986), True Romance (1993) and Enemy of the State (1999), the late Tony Scott cut his cinematic teeth on more thoughtful fare such as the slender Loving Memory (1971) and the melancholic The Hunger, the latter a surprisingly sad meditation on love, lust and the destructive nature of age, both mentally and physically. Essentially a vampire movie with little horror, The Hunger is Scott at his most subdued, portraying the tragic end of one long-term companionship and the beginnings of a new one.Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) and John (David Bowie) are vampires living a life of solitude, emerging occasionally to feed and giving weekly violin lessons to a young girl named Alice (Beth Ehlers). When John wakes up one morning with signs of physical decay, he approaches Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), a gerontologist studying rapid ageing in primates in the hope of finding a way to reverse it. Sarah thinks he is a quack and leaves him in the waiting room for much longer than promised, during which John ages decades and flees as his body betrays him. Remorseful, Sarah seeks John out but instead finds Miriam, who instantly strikes up an attraction with the beautiful doctor.Although he was criticised throughout his career for favouring style over substance with sickly action movies like Spy Game (2001) and Domino (2005), this approach works well for The Hunger. There's a distinct coldness to the aesthetic, like death is all over, and despite the film being very much a product of the 80s, it's aged remarkably well. The absorbing visuals do come at the expense of coherency however, and you are left trying to fill in most of the blanks yourself, with many things left unexplained. The lingering question of just why Miriam seems to be the only true immortal and an ending that had me scratching my head left me frustrated. But if you just go with it, The Hunger is at times moving and beautiful, refusing to give in to traditional vampire mythos in favour of telling its own unique, if flawed, tale.

With the passing of the legendary David Bowie, I can't help but ponder this phenomenal foray into 'Vampire eroticism 80's style.' Time has shown 80's films often don't hold up but Tony Scott's atmospheric feast is the exception for sure. Not a wink link in the bunch here as Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie all converge to generate a tremendous amount of heat, and shed copious amounts of blood! Early reaction to this film was quite awful (ironically.) Only time, distance and revisiting a film many years later can determine how it will truly age. Am aghast at Roger Ebert's scathingly mean spirited review of this film, clearly he was satiating excesses of his own to really enjoy it. If you've not seen it, hunt it down immediately. Its lush, erotic, modern-day-noir feel, exquisite acting and perfect orchestral underscoring will haunt your senses long after viewing.

I am not a fan of vampires in any shape or form. Except in the shape and form of David Bowie, who was the only reason I watched this piece of terminal preciosity in the first place and the only reason it gets four stars instead of zero. Well, okay, Tony Scott too, a little. But the rest of the cast, no. Catherine Deneuve always strikes me as a beautiful blank-faced animated dressmaker's dummy, and Susan Sarandon's perky feisty little shtick is wearing very, very thin.But. Vampires. I find them incredibly boring and banal, so really I was just, as I said, watching for Bowie. He looked fantastic, but the part didn't give him a whole lot to do. The shower scene was pleasant enough, and he did have a bit of actual acting to deal with on occasion, but he spent most of the film in old-age makeup, which kind of defeated my purpose. And lesbian sex between Deneuve and Sarandon, oh ick. I'd rather have watched Bowie play some more cello. Anyway, I was bored and annoyed. But don't go by me. Vampire groupies probably love it.