Vampires have always been sexy. Since it came into public and literary consciousness in the 19th century, vampirism has had sexual connotations, and Sheridan le Fanu’s novel Carmilla more or less invented the idea of a sexy lesbian vampire. By the 1960s, lesbian vampires had become a central fixture of horror and exploitation movies, from the Hammer horror movies to the works of Jesus Franco, but The Hunger does something different: portray the lesbian vampire with style, substance, and true eroticism.
What Is 'The Hunger' About?
Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) is a vampire of ancient Egyptian origin, living in modern-day New York with her lover, John (David Bowie). They enjoy a lavish lifestyle, play classical music together and stalk trendy nightclubs for prey, where they seduce their victims before killing them. The opening scene is about the most ‘80s thing you ever saw, set in a dark monochrome club where gothic rock band Bauhaus are playing their song "Bela Lugosi’s Dead" from behind a chicken wire screen, a fairly on-the-nose indication that this is the next generation of vampires, free of all the confines that traditional Dracula figures were known for. All the clubbers are white-faced, choppy-haired young things with enough eyeliner to paint the Sistine Chapel, and they are exactly the kind of easy prey the Blaylocks enjoy. They pick up a couple and bring them back to their home where seduction gives way to murder, the action being intercut with Bauhaus’ performance at an increasingly frenetic pace.
'The Hunger' Is a Unique and Modern Take on Vampires
Tony Scott directs The Hunger like the world’s most lavish music video. There are entire scenes with no dialog that simply function on music and action; there are scenes that could be considered far too long and pointless, but if there is one thing Scott aims to do with this project, it’s to show, not tell. For this reason, it can be difficult for first-time viewers — or those who have not read the novel by Whitley Strieber — to get a handle on what’s going on. The word vampire is never used once, and much of the meaning is conveyed in images alone, sometimes in flashbacks, so if you really want to grasp what The Hunger is getting at, it is a movie you have to pay attention to. Thankfully, Scott, the production designers, and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt are so fully committed to making a beautiful-looking picture that this isn’t much of an ask.
From the blessedly non-expositional dialog, we can infer that Miriam is the head vampire and that she has a long history of taking lovers who she turns into vampires. But in this world, while vampirism does mean eternal life, it does not mean eternal youth, merely a delay in aging. So one day, several hundred years after he and Miriam came together, John starts suffering from insomnia and then begins to age rapidly. He seeks out the help of Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), who works tirelessly in a lab to deduce what exactly causes the aging process and how she can slow it down or stop it altogether. As she puts it, “The secret of life and death.” When she first encounters John, she dismisses him as a crackpot and leaves him in the waiting room. But when she encounters him again just a few short hours later, he has aged decades. She is so startled and fascinated that she tracks him back to his home.
When Miriam finds her beloved in a state of decay, she carries his limp body up to the attic of their house, where she has an altar and stacks of coffins that apparently contain the rotted but still very living bodies of her former loves. For her, this is an incredibly painful but inevitable process that never gets any easier. John begs her to kill him, but she tearfully informs him, “There is no release, my darling,” and shelves him with the rest of her harem. Even before this, the couple talks about who her next companion is to be. It seems that Miriam can’t live this never-ending existence without a partner by her side, and as much as she loves John and mourns his end, she must have someone to replace him.
'The Hunger' Looks at All Sides of the Sexual Experience
This is where Sarah knocks on the door, regretful about her handling of John and wanting to make amends and perhaps find out what caused his unusual affliction. The two women take an instant liking to each other, and Miriam invites her in, where she offers her sherry and plays "Duo des Fleurs" on the piano. This classical piece is Miriam’s means of seduction, prompting Sarah to ask if it is a love song. “It is performed by two women,” Miriam informs her. Between the sherry, sapphic music, and the indescribable beauty of Catherine Deneuve, Sarah soon falls for her, and the women become lovers. "Duo des Fleurs" provides them with a sort of theme song, and carries on playing for the length of their love scene, which epitomizes the style of flowing curtains, dreamy lighting, and renaissance art that Scott adheres so strictly to with this movie. Despite this being the point at which Miriam turns Sarah into a vampire, it never fades off into horror territory in either its music or its style; the whole scene is pure seduction, absolutely bursting with ecstasy and passion.
But, as seduction does in Miriam’s world, it serves a dual purpose. What transpires between them is effectively a blood transfusion, which makes Sarah sick and blood tests easily spot the invading body within her system. This is a particularly interesting way of framing the vampire, one that film and literature have toyed with a bit over the years, and was never more relevant than in the early 1980s. Vampirism has long been an allegory for various kinds of disease, both physical and moral, and its use in the ‘80s when the AIDS epidemic was starting to become a very prevalent fear is an intriguing choice, particularly when involving a same-sex couple. Sarah's work brings a clinical feel to the story and the setting, and when this mysterious disease is detected in her blood, everyone is startled and completely perplexed. The Hunger very explicitly looks at vampirism — whether creating a vampire or feeding one — as a sexual endeavor. It could be characterized as a sexually transmitted disease: Once Sarah begins to realize that her sexual encounter with Miriam has made her very sick, she suffers that same mixture of confusion, fear, and remorse that one might after a casual sexual encounter leaves them with an infection.
To read further into an AIDS analogy, the way that John succumbs to his vampiric state mirrors the way that some patients experience their symptoms: a long time passes before the disease begins to take hold, and when it does, the onset is very quick and savage. Although the transference of vampirism is deliberate in the movie, it takes place under the pretense of genuine sexual attraction or romantic attachment. There is never any malice or attack involved, which makes their existence all the more tragic. Miriam, cursed to eternity, desperately seeks people with whom she has a real connection to see her through the endless world. This is undoubtedly the main philosophical point of vampirism in all its forms, most famously and deftly explored by Anne Rice in her Vampire Chronicles series: the existence of the vampire is nothing but pain because they are robbed of the most basic functions and assurances of life. Any person or place or thing that they emotionally attach themselves to is doomed to wither and die, leaving the vampire alone with no sense of permanence except in their own existence. And what could be more torturous than carrying on living when all you have ever loved has predeceased you?
The Cast and Characters of 'The Hunger' Make It Work
While there have been plenty of movies to bring lesbian vampires to the screen, they have rarely been so entrenched in emotions and heartache as The Hunger. It strips away all the usual staples of the vampire — sunlight, garlic, crucifixes — to focus solely on one vampire trying to make her unending life more bearable, and she does this through romantic and sexual companionship. Its setting in the present day, with all the trappings of modern science and convenience, allows this scenario to take on a more accessible and understandable form for the modern viewer, with no superstition, raving priests, or angry village mobs.
Tony Scott and casting agent Mary Goldberg were absolutely on the money when it came to selecting their lead trio. Catherine Deneuve is a classic bombshell of the 1960s, famed for such erotic pictures as Belle de Jour, and often cited as one of cinema's greatest beauties. Susan Sarandon always took a bold approach to her work, shying away from nothing and bringing wide-eyed eroticism to movies such as Pretty Baby and Atlantic City. David Bowie was among the gender-bending rock pioneers of the 1970s, conveying his exploratory brand of sexuality with costume, makeup, lyrics, and lovers. All three of these actors had already established their own unique sexual presences on stage and screen, and they complement each other so well as love-hungry vampires. Deneuve and Bowie, particularly, make a striking couple who absolutely embodies the flashy new-wave ‘80s vampire.
With The Hunger, Scott brings about an intriguing blend of classical art and modern ‘80s influences. The aforementioned opening scene featuring Bauhaus sets the tone well for a new era of vampires, in which conventions are shunned and genderless sex appeal is the heart of it. For every scene of a guy dancing on roller skates or the pounding techno of a nightclub, there is a soft-focus, pastel-colored romantic scene complete with billowing cheesecloth curtains and the flapping of doves’ wings. The two styles really come to a head for the finale in which Sarah manages to break Miriam’s curse, and her cocooned lovers all rise and turn on her, seeing her to her own demise. There is an emphasis on portraying the outside world as busy and chaotic, with constant background noise in the form of rain falling, traffic buzzing or birds’ wings beating. In the confines of the Blaylock house, however, there is an endless serenity, broken only by the performance of classical music.
'The Hunger' Is an '80s Classic Worth Your Time
It’s a beautiful movie that looks much more expensive than it probably was. Production design by Brian Morris is sublime, with the Blaylock’s expansive marble-decked townhouse being a particularly alluring central fixture. Academy Award-winning costume designer Milena Canonero is absolutely on point here, especially with someone as breathtaking as Catherine Deneuve to dress. Miriam is perfection in every single scene, the picture of sophisticated 1940s elegance with peplum waists, fishnet stockings, and fabulous hats. She is so suave she even smokes cigarettes right through her veils. The art department clearly shared Scott’s vision for his movie, and they deliver on every level. There was even a person whose sole job was drapes! Cleo Nethersole, it turns out, has made a career out of handling the drapery in movies, and he certainly earned his paycheck with The Hunger, whose use of drapery is so prevalent that Roger Ebert half-joked that the sex scene is the only one in which curtains weren’t blowing in the wind. For all that the critics said it failed to pull off, The Hunger is a rich, romantic, and emotional vampire story that values its style, and if you care to go looking for it, provides the substance too.
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