The Hunger

Posted 20 October 2010 | Movies

The Hunger is a 1983 British horror film and the directorial debut of Tony Scott. It is the story of an alternative love triangle between a doctor (Susan Sarandon) who specializes in sleep and aging research and a counter-culture vampire couple (Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie). The film is a loose adaptation of the 1981 novel of the same name by Whitley Strieber, with a screenplay by Ivan Davis and Michael Thomas. The cinematography was by Stephen Goldblatt.

The film opens in a New York night club. A gothic rock band (Bauhaus) is onstage performing a song called “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. In the crowd are John and Miriam Blaylock (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve). Stylishly dressed and predatory, they stalk the crowd and connect with a young couple (John Stephen Hill, Ann Magnuson). The couple takes them back to their home, where John and Miriam seduce them before viciously slashing their throats. John and Miriam are vampires, although not in any traditional sense; lacking fangs, they use ancient Egyptian pendants to cut open the jugulars of their victims.

The center of their strange existence is Miriam. She is an immortal being, able to pass along her supernatural qualities to selected human beings that she chooses to be her lovers. However, her progeny are not truly immortal as she is, and sooner or later, usually after 300 years or so, they find themselves suddenly and rapidly getting old. However, the progeny are unable to die, but continue to live forever withered, in a fully conscious, vegetative state. Miriam packs their decaying, aging bodies in caskets that she keeps in the attic of her residence. In the 18th century, Miriam offered this gift of immortality to John, who eagerly accepted, as had all her previous lovers through the ages.

The Hunger

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