
Tony Scott directs Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon in this lesbian vampire horror where an ageing specialist becomes fascinated by a pair of ancient immortals hiding out on the Upper East Side.
All calling card style and MTV excess except when it isn’t. At times The Hunger is unsettling, shocking and classically terrifying. The opening 20 minutes has to be one of the most sustained sequences of impending doom ever, owing as much to Scott’s homage to Nicolas Roeg’s unusual cross cutting as it does Duran Duran promos. The middle section is calmer, even a little draggy, but we know it is building to Deneuve and Sarandon getting it on. That scene of seduction and infection is still pretty hot. Just when you think you know where it is all going to end, there is massive lurch into prestige Grand Guignol. Fetid skin flakes, bones shatter and blood pumps. Pretty amazing stuff! “You said forever. Never ending. Do you remember?”
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