The Hunger
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Movie Reviews of The Hunger
Movie Review: Vampire Classic FINALLY on DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
THE HUNGER is known for many things. Foremost is the love scene between vamp Miriam (Deneuve) and victim Sarah (Sarandon). But it offers more than one of the best photographed lesbian love scenes ever! Secondly it won the academy award for make-up - a disturbing sequence of Bowie aging is sublime! It is a modern horror classic that introduced Gothic elements and merged them with an over the top 80s sensibility. It is a film many argue has more style than substance, but it remains an affecting moving piece that has earned its cult status. The story is loosely based on the Whitley Strieber novel, and concerns a vampire (Miriam) who can take a lover and make them live for a couple hundred years with her as long as they feed weekly and get enough sleep. It begins with John (Bowie) entering a phase where he begins to age rapidly as his time passes - he can't eat or sleep. Miriam must find a new partner, and comes to fancy a doctor who is researching the effects of aging - Sarah. Tony Scott directed this film with style to spare -- live shots of Peter Murphy singing "Bela Lugosi's Dead", wicked outfits, smoke and mist, and a classical score that ehanced the timeless setting. Sometimes he bombards you with images that seem confusing at first, but this is a film about visceral pleasures so enjoy the ride. The cast is superior - Bowie, Deneuve, and Sarandon never looked better and they add tons of weight to the story. The score is amazing! The pacing is purposefully languid like a long slow seduction.
The DVD seems to be a barebones affair without extras. On laser disc it only came with a trailer, so expect the same. Hopefully they may change this, but it is definitely a movie where sight and sound will help! So thank goodness for the DVD release. I haven't seen a good widescreen print since it was in theatres.
Movie Review: artsy, esoteric, self-indulgent, and wonder
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought The Hunger was superb and am so glad it is available now on DVD.
Visually, the film is stunning, cool and dark and sophisticated. The editing is quick and vague, giving more impressions to the viewer than facts.
The viewer is only told half the story in each flashback or conversation, keeping you on your toes throughout the film. The acting is super. Catherine Denueve has never looked more beautiful, seductive, self-assured, and sleek. She plays her role minimally, despite the blood and gore, which any 10,000 year old vampire who has seen empires come and go would do.
David Bowie is grand as the cool Manhattan club crowd sophisticate starting to age years by the minutes. Susan Sarandon is the perfect brilliant tom-boy catch that Miriam would want for her next lover.Their seduction scene is beautiful.
Like Anne Rice, the bi-sexuality of the vampires is here assumed in a matter-of-fact way. It is as if when life appears to go on for eternity and you are forced to the edge of society, bisexuality becomes a natural state.
Now what does the ancient Catherine Denueve character, Miriam, do when her love of loves, her love for eternity starts to age and deteriorate? She dresses up in Chanel and goes shopping!
When Catherine and David Bowie pick up a handsome couple of swingers in the dance club, they kill them both with the nonchalance of any couple who spice up their relationship with mate swapping rituals.
Does it not seem suspicious that the most beautiful actress plays the most cold-hearted of vampires? The film is social commentary without preaching. The images tell the message. Twenty three years after the film was first released, it still can seduce you with its mystery and cold sophistication.
Movie Review: Hypnotic textures, worth a serious look
Summary: 5 Stars
A deeply enticing, luxurious, elegant, bloody but not excessively violent, infinitely intriguing, mildly shocking film. Quite a mouthful, but it is all that and more. Just saw it today and really enjoyed it. David Bowie (despite his acting limitations) is reserved and ice-cold, very charismatic and compelling on film, and does great work here. Catherine Deneuve is casually phenomenal, so soulful, effortlessly projecting a somewhat forlorn, aristocratic sensuality. Susan Sarandon is, of course, a perfectly attractive sparring partner in this elevated arena of sensual projection. The interiors and textures of this film are interesting in so many ways. Tony Scott was an early and obvious great talent--this is a fine complement to brother Ridley's Blade Runner and/or Someone to Watch Over Me. I love the elegant textures and moral quandaries of all these films. It should be noted that the actual kisses between Ms. Sarandon and Ms. Deneuve are rather chaste--they weren't overly keen on making out, I suppose. But I think you will absolutely sense incredible smoke and multiple fires in the atmospheres, soft conversations and mannerisms that precede the eventful embraces. Very sexy. The story isn't thorougly satisfying--I see no good reason for the relationship NOT to develop, but that's wish projecting onto someone else's baby. I suppose I root for all vampires; they could use a bit of solidarity. Anyway, highly recommended for cinephiles and vampire completists who I'm sure already know plenty about it. Extreme bonus points for seeing a very serious Dan Hedaya with hair, and the opening sequence with Peter Murphy of Bauhaus strangely gesticulating to 'Bela Lugois's Dead.' What a film!Movie Review: Ethereal
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I say? This is one of my all time favorite films. It's a vampire story but not of the traditional kind. In this one Catherine Deneuve's character is the main vampire who seduces a lover who can only really live in youth for a couple of centuries and then they age rapidly and end up in a kind of limbo of no death and no life. In this story her current partner, David Bowie, is starting his aging process and she must find a new partner. She then fixates on a Dr., played by Susan Sarandon, who is doing research on the aging process whom her lover, David Bowie, goes to in desperation to stay young.
I normally don't like vampire films, but I loved the whole ambience of this film. This film is very dreamy, sensual, erotic, ethereal, and a feast for the senses. Catherine Denueve is perfectly cast as Mariam. She radiates a really cool exterior yet there is a warmth that comes out as she does mourn the loss of her current lover. And for sure her French accent only adds to that character's appeal. The seduction scene is one of the most erotic I've seen in any film. David Bowie is perfect too as the aging lover. He gives a truly heartbreaking performance as his desperation to keep living mounts. Susan Sarandon was the only person who I felt was a bit miscast here. What was with the hair?
For those who like the blood thirsty part of vampire films you might be disappointed. There are some really disturbing scenes in the beginning of the film, very dark and gritty, and then again towards the end. But for the most part this is a non graphic film. For those who like the romanticism of a vampire story, this is the film for you.
Movie Review: The Hunger, no just style over substance
Summary: 5 Stars
If creating the feeling of death is vacous, then everything else must be vacuos as well. The style is the substance.
The death slowly picking away at these people.
The sense of isolation as time passes.
The desperate need to survive, even at the expense of youth.
The sexual ownership, to escape the nothingness.
This film is not the most profound ever, but it does have points to make and certainly is not vacous.
Try to view it like music, like Barber's Adagio for strings. it is the feeling, the atmosphere, the picture that is the substance.
this is what the modern film should be like, and I don't care what anyone says, Tony Scott you are a genius, even if you sold out (but considering that even now they still knock this film as insignificant, I don't blame you).
This is perhaps the most important modern film (anything I guess made after 1977), it's use of technique, as in image (the killing of dead space is as good as Von Sterneberg), it's use of montage (the start is a sublime sequence, one that Eisenstein would have loved), it's use of sound is startling (the synthesised score is perfectly melded to the image, and the repeated scream at the end I will never forget).