FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Alyssa Black (Aly200)
The vampires in this directorial debut by the late Tony Scott are the kind of creatures to fear; relentless, fierce bloodsuckers who won't spare your life if you cross their path. There's a punk vibe to the characters and the environment surrounding them (thanks in no small part to the electronic sound effects used throughout the film).Leading the deadly duo is the lovey French beauty and actress Catherine Deneuve as the seductively manipulative Miriam Blaylock. Deneuve uses silence to her advantage as her character utters little dialogue, instead relying on subtle body language like menacing glares. When Miriam does speak, her voice is laced with silky smoothness thanks heavily to Deneuve's natural French accent. Her behavior is almost callous when she learns how quickly her companion, John Blaylock, is dying; even to refusing to save his life by claiming "I can't". However during the film's shocking finale, Miriam's actions from the past do come back to give her retribution for refusing to help all her former lovers.Playing the second female lead is the talented Susan Sarandon as scientist Sarah Roberts. She plays Sarah's naivety well as she is a rational woman, but when confronted with the rapidly dying John Blaylock her logic is soon thrown for a loop when she realizes John's tale of his fate comes true. There is a vulnerability always present in Sarandon throughout the film as her portrayal remains human to her final scene. The chemistry between her and Deneuve is electric as Miriam lures Sarah into her dangerous web.The final member of the triangle though he exits nearly halfway through the film is the charismatic late singer David Bowie as John Blaylock. Bowie makes the most of his limited screen-time in the only way Bowie could. He is silent, brooding, charming, yet lethal. The late singer-actor even learned to play cello for the music scenes and the haunting melody pulls you in and keeps you entranced. The makeup to age Bowie's John is remarkable as the actor is barely recognizable under the layers; even Bowie's trademark British accent is barely recognizable when he speaks an aged vampire (According to Bowie himself, he would go out onto the George Washington Bridge and scream out punk rock songs to make his voice hoarse for his later movie scenes). Sadly John Blaylock was a character who was underused and given little to do before he is quickly gone before the viewer's eyes, but he does leave an impression.The narrative is straightforward, but does little to develop the element of trying to save David Bowie's John Blaylock and seemed to rush forward to the relationship between Catherine Deneuve's Miriam and Susan Sarandon's Sarah. The atmosphere of the film is dark and brooding with a touch of the 1980s punk rock vibe in the background. The score is subtle and consists mostly of classical music (played by actors Catherine Deneuve (on piano) and David Bowie (on cello)) and electronic vibrations tossed in the background throughout the film's run time.This is worth a watch for any vampire movie fan.
lasttimeisaw
The late Tony Scott's theatrical debut feature, a UK production assembles three household names from three different countries, THE HUNGER is a Gothic horror taps into Whitley Strieber's novel about vampirism but only vaguely specifies its origin. It takes place in New York (although the shooting was done almost entirely in London), Miriam and John Blaylock (Deneuve and Bowie) are blood-seeking immortals (the word "vampire" has never been disclosed through the entire film), living in a grandiose mansion, but "immortal" turns out not to be the case for John, since he is originally human and the eternal life which is bestowed by Miriam has a life expectancy (several hundreds years supposedly), so he seeks help from Doctor Sarah Roberts (Sarandon), whose research team is working on the relation between sleep and ageing, but his doom seems inevitable, and it also directly introduces Miriam a new disciple as John's successor, only this time, a shallowly characterised succession will alter their fate forever.As a first-timer, Scott competently captures the ethos of the time to embellish the vampire subculture with the sonic alternation of synth-pop (Bauhaus' opening performance of BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD) and classic pieces (Schubert's PIANO TRIO NO.2 and Léo Delibes' LAKMÉ: THE FLOWER DUET) to underline the dual facets of vampire's lifestyle: their innate dependence on gore and their noble superiority of eternity; also his visual stratagem is exemplary to cast a sensational vibe during the utterly male-skewing erotic lesbian sex scenes and the pigeons and ghastly cadavers galore finale. But as a whole, the film is wantonly garbled without a through- line to sustain the coherence of the plot (e.g. why Sarah's scientific background doesn't elicit any interest in Miriam's undying mystery? also, what on earth happens to the frenzied monkey which kills its partner and ages drastically?).The icy but ever-so-glamorous Deneuve is stunningly camera-genic, Bowie endures a terrifyingly rapid progeria downturn with the zombie-alike make-up efforts, and Sarandon is so earthly banal compared to the alien but dazzling Deneuve. But none of them can outstrip the ill-defined story. The hunger for eternal youth and the fear of ageing play out as one can expect, but mostly it is an enticing piece of kitsch drawing on blatant erotism and gimcrack horror. Nevertheless it does spawn many tributes for latecomers, off the top of my head, John Woo's trademark fascination of pigeons in the action set pieces and the latest American HORROR STORY: HOTEL, the entrance sequence of Lady Gaga and Matt Bomer is surely an updated representation of Denueve and Bowie here.
raymond_chandler
"The Hunger" is a fairly empty exercise in Style, but, ooh-la-la, what style! Tony Scott's transition piece from shooting commercials to directing features, it feels like a 97-mnute Chanel ad. Nowhere in evidence are the grotesque framing, cutting, editing, and color-filtering choices that mar so much of Scott's later work. "The Hunger" boasts three gorgeous leads, and incredibly rich photography and of-the-moment music, combined with the lazy, narcotic pacing of an afternoon spent lounging in an opium den. It was cutting-edge culture in 1983, and has influenced countless film-makers ever since. A much, much better movie than "Only Lovers Left Alive", IMO.
GL84
After developing a special formula, a scientist is invited by secretive vampires to help them with their plans and when their encounters make others curious, they eventually stumbles across their true and tries to save her before she becomes fully integrated into the society.There wasn't much right to this one. The main part to this one was the lesbian relationship having a lot to it. Besides being exposed to a lot of great nudity, there's also the really great scene it happens in. Taking place behind a big veil, it's a much classier and inevitably more romantic scene than the high-end sleaze it easily could've gone to. The strange part of that veil is that it comes into play on another really great scene, the funeral of the other vampire as the veil obscures it enough to tell what's going on but makes it still really impressive when combined with the unique lighting on display. Also among the best parts of the movie was the vampire's resurrection scene, which here is just really cool-looking. Along with its kills, these are the film's positives as this one had a couple problems to it that really hurt this one. The biggest issue with this is the nearly large portion of the film that doesn't have anything exciting happen. Frankly, nearly all of the beginning of the film is just incredibly dull, with almost nothing happening at all as it's mostly just a series of scenes depicting them doing nothing but talking back and forth over whether or not the drug even works at all or how they're going to get closer to her. This really loses its appeal after the first couple times witnessing these scenes over and over, which pretty much make up all of the first half of the film. The whole of these scenes are just ungodly dull due to the repetition of these scenes and it makes them all quite painful to get through. This is pretty much a slow-paced film to being with, taking a fairly long time doing nothing of real importance since the lethargic pace really takes a long toll. This is mostly prevalent for the film's last half when it deals with the relationship between the two as this is long, drawn-out and quite useless. The last part to lower this is the lack of blood and gore with this one is very dry and doesn't have very much that would give it more of a chance to bring in more since the opportunity is hardly ever there anyway. These here are what lower the film.Rated R: Nudity, Graphic Violence, several sex scenes and Language.
