‘Humankind dies one way, we another. Their end is final. Ours is not…’
I have long since stated that as an English teacher, dialogue is probably the thing I connect with most in any film. This is why I struggle with Denis Villeneuve’s work. His total disinterest in dialogue in favour of spectacle is the opposite of what I personally find appealing. For this reason, The Hunger, Tony Scott’s arty and expressionistic debut feature was never going to hold much appeal…
John Blaylock (David Bowie) and his wife Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) are vampires in 1980s New York. One day, after years of tranquillity, John suddenly begins to age rapidly. Panicked, he enlists the help of anti-ageing expert Sarah (Susan Sarandon).
Scott would go on to direct crowd-pleasers such as Top Gun and Crimson Tide, but The Hunger is a very different beast to that kind of movie. It’s shot like a music video (and I will concede the soundtrack is excellent). Indeed, the film opens with Bauhaus singing their goth classic ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and while this first scene is exciting and innovative and all the rest of it, the film never recaptures its early promise once it takes on a more pretentious bent.
The Hunger has many visually striking moments, and the three main cast members do their best, but ultimately even at 97 minutes, I found Scott’s debut film to be a bit of a slog.
