The Hunger
#7 - The Hunger
SUMMARY (spoilers in Summary and Review)
A vampire couple living in New York in the 1980’s find
themselves living very comfortably in a high-rise apartment, with lots of money
to spare, prowling the nightlife and preying on the weak in darkened corners of bars and clubs. But then one of them, the man,
begins to age at an alarming rate, while the woman does not…and it seems that
she has a secret that she will not share with him. Desperate to find out what’s wrong with him,
he goes to a doctor who ends up being pulled into their twisted world, and soon
will be extended the opportunity to join them.
The question is, will she take it?
REVIEW
Yes, vampire movies are so
over, but despair not…for a realistic approach, as well as a visceral and raw approach
to these creatures of the night, The Hunger does not lack in the least. Made in 1983, starring David Bowie, Catharine Deneuve, and
Susan Sarandon, this particular vampire story is raw, primal, and also scary in
its portrayal of the dark world of these supernatural creatures. However, a WARNING! The movie is graphic (nudity, blood, violence) and extremely dark...but if you don't mind, then forward we go.
The casting of David Bowie in the role for this movie was
particularly genius, in my opinion, as he is one of those people who seems to
not truly be of the normal, mortal role.
In a few other movies he has also been given roles of characters that
are not human, though they look to be.
The angles of his face and the elegance of the way he moves and speaks
combined together with the role of playing the vampire is very well thought
out.
Made in the eighties, the music ranges from the typical
synth and techno, all the way to wonderfully played classical pieces, including
the great classic Suite #1 for Solo Cello
in G-Major, Prelidium (Excerpt, First Movement). Catharine Deneuve is fantastic as the
sadistic vampire who secretly takes pleasure out of seeing her lover panic and
age before her eyes. When Bowie’s
character goes to the doctor and meets Sarandon’s character, he is fighting the
urge to kill out in broad daylight, and Bowie does a marvelous job in
portraying the internal and external struggle that he is going through. My favorite line in the movie is when he
first realizes what is happening to him, and he yells out… “What am I going to
do?!”, but receives only silence as his answer.
In a macabre twist near the end of this movie, there is an
explicit love scene between Deneuve and Sarandon that is not really necessary
for the movie, but it does a little in helping to explain how Sarandon’s
character is pulled into the darkness of that particular world. The true twist at the end of the movie,
however, is one that I cannot put here as it would truly ruin the climactic and
jarring ending of the movie.
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