The Hunger (1983) – Film Summary and Review
There are any number of vampire films available to buy or rent and new ones are being produced all the time, but the majority of on-screen vampires share one thing in common: long sharp teeth. Nevertheless, a few films break the mould by offering a slightly different kind of vampire. The Hunger is one of them.
The film is set in 1980s New York. David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve star as John and Miriam Blaylock who, on the face of things, appear to be a normal couple. They look very respectable and live in a house that is large enough to indicate that they are also reasonably wealthy. They even venture out in daylight hours; so nothing about them screams vampire but that’s what they are.
The Hunger begins by showing the Blaylocks in a nightclub, where they pick up a younger couple. Is there going to be a swinging session? It certainly looks that way until the Blaylocks slit their victims’ throats, and begin feeding on their blood.
The Blaylocks don’t use a normal common-all-garden knife for this messy work. Each of them wears an Ankh around their neck and their Ankhs are a little different from most because the bottom section pulls away to reveal a short, sharp blade. It’s this they use whenever they need to feed.
Flashback sequences indicate that the Blaylocks have been together for a very long time and that Miriam, who is the oldest, was around and busy doing her thing in Ancient Egyptian times.
However, John is only the most recent of a long line of companions. Miriam promised John that they would be together forever but it soon becomes apparent that Miriam was either indulging in a spot of wishful thinking or was lying to him because John, like Miriam’s former lovers, has started to age and there is a reason for this.
John and Miriam have to sleep six out of every twenty-four hours and feed once every seven days. The problem is John can no longer sleep at all and, now he is deprived of his beauty sleep, time is playing catch up.
Susan Sarandon plays premature ageing specialist Dr. Sarah Roberts, who has found a connection between sleep and the ageing process. Miriam has read one of the doctor’s books and goes to see her, but if she finds out anything that could help John the viewer is kept in ignorance. It is obvious, however, that Miriam is very attracted to the doctor.
John also goes to see Roberts, but when he shows her the age spots on his hand and informs her that he was “30 years old this morning,” she takes him for a nut and leaves him in the visitors’ lounge, promising to return in twenty minutes time, but not intending to do so. Next follows quite a sad and dramatic scene where Roberts sits and watches a baboon test subject age rapidly, die, and turn to dust. While all this is happening John is still waiting in the visitors’ lounge doing some rapid ageing of his own.
When John returns home Miriam is not there. In fact, she seems to be out and about and doing her own thing much of the time. After such a long time together you would expect that she would want to be at John’s side so that she could spend as much time with him as possible. This was not the case, and I had to ask myself how much she cared for him in the first place. Was he really her love, or just a disposable companion? This is a good question because as soon as John’s strength fails him she carries him up to a room at the top of the house, places him inside a wooden box, and stacks him alongside the rest of her former lovers. Then, with no mourning period at all, Miriam turns all of her attention to wooing Dr. Roberts and has soon bedded her and infected her with vampire blood.
This time, Miriam may have bitten off more than she can chew because Roberts does not appreciate a new lifestyle being forced upon her and she has no intention of playing by Miriam’s rules.
The Hunger is refreshingly different from the majority of vampire films. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review one difference is the traditional fangs of the vampire have been replaced with blades, but this is not the only thing that makes The Hunger a little different. In many vampire films, the vampires are busy trying to increase their numbers. The Hunger has just two vampires and Miriam only decides to create another one when she needs to replace her companion. These vampires walk by day, have a strict sleep pattern to adhere to and, let’s not forget that, in this film, the female of the species is very much the dominant partner. I think it’s fair to say that, back in the 80s, The Hunger broke new ground.
Bowie and Deneauve are well cast as the Blaylocks, and Susan Sarandon was an equally good choice to play Dr. Roberts. Few people would argue that Deneuve and Sarandon are both capable actors. David Bowie is a different kettle of fish. He is famous for singing, rather than acting, but you might be surprised to learn that Bowie does have a certain flair for acting. If you have never been exposed to his acting talents, The Hunger is a good place to start.
The Hunger has a runtime of just over an hour and a half and, although it’s quite bloody in places, it’s not a particularly gory film. Nor is it a high-action option. It’s pretty slow-moving but boasts a reasonably good storyline, a capable cast, and a pretty good twist at the end. It will not be to every viewer’s taste, and the film received some very negative reviews when it was first released, but The Hunger has since achieved a cult following so it is also true to say that many people love this unusual interpretation of vampire lore.