The first post for my blog will be about the latest film I just watched, The Hunger. This vampire flick carries an all star cast consisting of David Bowie, Catherine
Denevue, and Susan
Sarandon. The picture starts off with a
performance by Bauhaus in a goth night club in New York City. There are stylish cuts between the
performance and our vampire couple (John & Miriam) played by Bowie and
Denevue as they seduce two
separate people in efforts to get their blood.
Midway through the film we find out that John all of a sudden is aging rapidly, which is strange considering vampires don't age and live forever. He seeks the help of Dr. Sara Roberts played by Susan
Sarandon, who is conducting research on
Progeria, a disease that ages children usually causing an early death at the age of 15. However, Dr. Roberts was unable to help because her research was basically a failure. We later find out that Johns vampire wife, Miriam, has had many lovers in the past who have suffered the same fate as John. Not only that, but she collects her lovers and keeps their remains in her
attic. What's worse is that we find out that they aren't dead, and that they are just really old looking and are in vegetative state, laying in coffins for hundreds of years!
So after Bowie bites the Ziggy Star Dust,
Denevue finds her new love interest, Dr. Roberts. Vampire lesbian? Periods must be something to look forward to now if you're a lesbian vampire. Long story short, she uses her vampire beauty to lure Susan
Sarandon to be her new love interest, turning her into a vampire, until she ages and becomes useless like all her other love interests she has collected over a span of 1000 years.
Dr. Roberts has a hunger for blood, killing her own boyfriend when he goes to Miriam's mansion like townhouse in New York to check up on Dr. Roberts, not knowing he will be her next meal. Aside from collecting lovers, she has also collected quite a sum of money. Shortly after
Sarandon sacrafices her self with
Miriams Egyptian pendant which is also a knife due to her guilty conscience. Soon after all of
Miriams previous lovers, including Bowie, creep out of their coffins and
collectively push Miriam off of the
balcony on the top of the stair case of her home. Guess they should have used elevators. Once she is dead, the spell on her past lovers are broken. Their mummified bodies decompose and they finally die.
The end of the film is confusing, but from what I gathered Susan
Sarandon doesn't actually die. We see her in a mystical land of curtains that is on the top of a nice apartment in a different city. Perhaps the past lovers brought her back to life? Maybe she is in some sort of after life? Regardless, I thought the ending was kind of lame.
Over all, I was more impressed with the art direction of the film. Quite often I felt like I was watching a high fashion editorial shoot in the making. I like the abrupt cuts in the editing and the colored filters used in a lot of interior scenes. Aside from the editing, I really appreciated the make up effects used on David Bowie. They did a wonderful job aging him to make him look 110. Luckily this won't be a look Bowie plans on sporting until another 50 years from now, assuming his wife
Iman lets him.
If you are looking for a typical vampire film featuring fangs, coffins, crosses and blood, this isn't the film for you. However, if you are looking for an episode of General Hospital gone vamp with a creative art direction, this is a good film for you to see. I give it a 6 out of 10.
The final point I would like to make is more about the title, The Hunger, which to me has a double meaning. The obvious would be a vampire's hunger for blood, however, I also think it could be a hunger for something else, perhaps a secret hunger for homosexual sexual relations (which is explicit in the lesbian love scene between Sarandon and Denevue. They even casted David Bowie, iconic for his androgynous looks and sexual freedoms. Perhaps it can also mean the hunger we have as humans for immortality.
