F-0156

Title:

The Hunger

Category:

S

Produced:

1983

Country:

UK

Released:

Film: Apr 1983 (USA)
DVD: Oct 2004
VHS: Jul 1993; Aug 1997

Director:

Tony Scott

Writer:

James Costigan; Ivan Davis; Whitley Strieber (novel); Michael Thomas

Actors:

Catherine Deneuve (Miriam Blaylock); David Bowie (John); Susan Sarandon (Dr. Sarah Roberts); Cliff De Young (Tom Haver); Beth Ehlers (Alice Cavender); Dan Hedaya (Lieutenant Allegrezza); Rufus Collins (Charlie Humphries); Suzanne Bertish (Phyllis); James Aubrey (Ron); Ann Magnuson (Young Woman from Disco); John Stephen Hill (Young Man from Disco); Shane Rimmer (Jelinek); Douglas Lambert (TV Host); Bessie Love (Lillybelle); John Pankow (1^st Phone Booth Youth)

Description:

The Egyptian vampire lady Miriam subsists upon the blood of her lovers. In return the guys or girls don't age... until Miriam has enough of them. Unfortunately that's currently the case with John, so his life expectancy is below 24 hours. Desperately he seeks help from the famous Dr. Sarah Roberts. She doesn't really belive his story, but becomes curious and contacts Miriam ... and gets caught in her ban, too. (Tom Zoerner)

In New York City, the lovers Miriam Blaylock and John are vampires that survive through time under the Egyptian symbol of Ankh. When John starts an accelerated aging process, he seeks the specialist Dr. Sarah Roberts. However, he does not survive, and Miriam selects Sarah to be her next lover. (Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Miriam, a centuries-old vampire, preys on urban clubgoers with her vampire lover John. When John suddenly ages and wastes away, Miriam casts her spell upon Sarah, a doctor who researches premature aging. This neo-Gothic exercise in style and atmosphere is perhaps most widely known for a lesbian sex scene involving Miriam and Sarah, played by Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. (Marty Cassady)

Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are rich, beautiful, and oh-so chic as denizens of the night. Dressed in sleek outfits and stylish sunglasses, they haunt rock & roll clubs on the prowl for young blood, whom they bring home to their impossibly luxurious mansion for a late-night snack. Being a vampire never looked more sexy, but there's a price: Bowie starts to age so fast he wrinkles up in the waiting room of a doctor's (Susan Sarandon) office. The agelessly elegant Deneuve, evoking Delphine Seyrig's Countess Bathory from Daughters of Darkness, is perfectly cast as a millenniums-old bloodsucker who seeks a new mate in Sarandon and seduces her in a sunlight-bathed afternoon of smooth, silky sex. Tony Scott's (Ridley's brother) directorial debut, adapted from the Whitley Strieber novel, revises the vampire myth with Egyptian inflections and removes all references to garlic and crosses and wooden stakes--these bloodsuckers can even walk around in the daylight--but the ties between blood and sex are as strong as ever. Scott's background as an award-winning commercial director is evident in every richly textured frame and his densely interwoven editing, but the moody atmosphere comes at the expense of dramatic urgency. At times the film is so languid it becomes mired in its hazy, impeccably designed visual style. In its own way, The Hunger is the perfect vampire film for the '80s, all poise and attitude and surface beauty. Sarandon talks candidly about the film in the documentary The Celluloid Closet. (Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com)

Language:

English

TT:

100 min / 97 min (Canada, TV version) / 96 min (DVD)

Bach's Music:

Prelude (Mvt. 1) from Suite for solo cello No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007

Format:

Film: Color (Metrocolor)
DVD: (Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC) | (PAL, Region 2)
VHS: (Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC) | (Color, NTSC) | (Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC) | (PAL)

Company:

Film: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
DVD: Warner Home Video
VHS: MGM (Warner); MGM (Video & DVD)

Comments:

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

DVD: Amazon.com | Amazon.com (Region 2)
VHS: Amazon.com | Amazon.com | Amazon.com | Amazon.com [PAL] | Amazon.com [PAL]

Source/Links: IMDB
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)