The Hunger

Written by i j

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 16:09

Today we have a new movie review that Marissa Macabre sent to our email… I’m starting to feel bad because she has more time for writing than me! Anyway, today Marissa writes about…

The Hunger by Marissa Macabre

(aka Marissa Jamieson)

I was introduced to this film last summer by my dad’s recommendation. My husband and I decided to turn out all of the lights, pour ourselves a glass of port, and satiate our vampyric appetite by watching The Hunger.

The movie opens with the infamous Bauhaus song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” while showing intermittent clips of David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve scoring some fresh bloody bait at an 80’s goth club. As a matter of fact, Bauhaus is playing on the screen at the goth club, which totally sets the stage for a mesmerizing film about seductive and stylish vampires.

But is this your average vampire film? Definitely not. See, where all of the newcomer vampire stories like the Twilight series project the idea that vampires are immortal, The Hunger quashes that notion. David Bowie’s “undead” character John starts to rapidly deteriorate in the beginning of the film. He is the byproduct of Vamp Queen Catherine Deneuve’s character Miriam; she has to constantly create new vampire mates because none of them share her longevity. Miriam has been around for centuries, possibly even since some of the earlier Biblical eras.

Upon searching for John’s cure, Miriam encounters Susan Sarandon’s character Sarah, a geneticist studying the effects of aging. The two being a vampy relationship, as anyone could imagine in a vampire film.

What makes this film unique is the noir quality of everything! John and Miriam’s gigantic New York apartment is like a modern day mausoleum/museum. The apartment serves as the music studio where Miriam teaches a young androgynous pupil named Alice how to play the eerie violin. Once John’s vampire body starts to decay, he no longer looks like the gorgeous David Bowie, but instead a geriatric creep. Alice finds him one day as she arrives to practice her music lessons, and instead she meets her demise. He tries to suck her blood for sustenance, but it doesn’t go very far. John ends up in the worst possible hell—Miriam’s attic.

This attic in the New York apartment is like a hybrid of a Prince video and Dracula’s layer. Miriam stores all of her aged vampyric partners in stone coffins once they no longer serve their purpose as her youthful companions. The climax scene even shows Miriam in the attic with doves flying about and the aged vampires coming at her like Night of the Living Dead for their final revenge.

The Hunger, which came out in 1983, the year I was born, still serves its purpose today as a lovely gothic vampire love story.

Gothic Checklist

1) Cemeteries- no but the attic serves as a coffin storage unit for “dead” vampires

2) Blood- yes

3) Candlelight- yes

4) A Literary background- yes, loosely based on Whitley Strieber’s novel

5) A Sinister epic tale- not epic because it doesn’t show the centuries in detail

6) Vampires- yes

7) Ghosts- more like vampire zombies at the end, but ethereal none-the-less

8) Evil children- no. but there are evil monkeys. What’s the difference?!

9) Victorian clothing- yes

10) High sexuality- yes