October 24, 2002

vampire \` 'vam-"pIr\ n : 1 : a night -wandering, bloodsucking ghost. 2 : A mythical person who drinks blood u/w fangs.

lesbian \les bi an\ 1 : of or relating to Lesbos. 2 : [from the reputed homosexual band associated with Sappho of Lesbos] : of or relating to homosexuality between females

art \'är-t\ : Decorative or illustrative elements in printed matter

artsy \'är-tSE\ 1 : from the phrase arts and crafts. 2 : Overstated, sometimes garish over-use of art or artistic taste.

Pretentious \ pri-'ten(t)-sh&s\ : characterized by pretension: as a : making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) b : expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.

Boredom \'bOr-d&m\ : the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.

The Hunger contains ALL of these things.

I don't care how much well-thought-out artisitic know-how went into this movie, I don't care how many vampire lesbian love scenes the movie contains, I don't care how good the cast is, this movie bored me out of my skull!

But none dare call it junk, why? because no one wants to put down a movie that looks this good. Good looking or not, this movie has the narrative flow of a perfume commerical and it is just about as entertaining. Personally, I have been known to trod the impenetrable landscape of French new-wave cinema but this is the limit!

The Hunger is a slick but vapid story settling on a Gothic vampire mansion, taking us through the existence of a lady vampire, her treatment of her beau, his problem, her new fling, how it effects her ex-boyfriends and how cannibal vampire monkeys somehow find their way into the mix.

The movie takes place amid the high society set and opens with footage of cannibal vampire monkeys, a performance of "Bela Lugosi is Dead" and a vampire couple hooking up with a non-vampire couple who apparently are about to be the evening's main course.

The vampire couple, Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Denueve) and her latest fling, John (David Bowie), do not have a lot to do when they aren't out looking for appetizing nubiles. Their boring lives (and I do mean BORING lives) consist simply of blood-sucking, ballroom dances and piano lessons (though not in that order). As a matter of fact this is ALL they do. For over an hour, we are forced to watch as they do one of these three things but sadly not all three at the same time.

Suddenly Bowie finds that without human blood he gets old very quickly (as if he hasn't already). Bowie's vampire isn't the smartest egg in the carton especially when he makes a breach of vampire etiquette and goes to see a doctor. On his visit he is treated by Dr. Sarah (Susan Sarandon), who is doing a study on aging in human beings. Her study has already found that rapid aging causes immortality and a strange cannibalistic quality in monkeys (ah ha!). Actually at this point I really would have preferred a movie about cannibal vampire monkeys (heck the way this movie was going I would have been satisfied with stock footage of Non-cannibal Non-vampire monkeys). Unfortunately, cannibal vampire monkeys are too silly to build a movie on so this is the last we hear of the cannibal vampire monkeys and the movie gets back to David Bowie and his problem (yawn!).

In the face of a gravely ill patient in an emergency ward, the good-hearted Dr. Sarah does what any doctor would do - she sticks him in the waiting room. There he begins to rapidly (and I do mean RAPIDLY!) deteriorate, his hair falls out and his skin becomes wrinkled. Not wanting help from Dr. Sara when she finally gets around to him, he goes home and begs Denueve for help. But she's no help because she thinks he's all icky and won't touch him.

In the face of a gravely ill boyfriend in a gothic vampire mansion, the good-hearted Miriam does what any vampire would do - she sticks him in the attic. There he deteriorates even more along with all her other old (really old) boyfriends who are simply rotting away.

Declaring herself single again, Miriam decides to try something new - like Dr. Sarah whom she turns into a vampire (I guess) with an afternoon of wine, music and slow, very boring sex. This is the famous scene and the only scene that anyone remembers from this movie. All lit in soft light with a deliberately slow pace and lots of feminine music and confusing close-up, it is just about the most boring love making scene that you could imagine.

Anyway, this forbidden relationship becomes not only a concern to Sarah's husband but to Miriam's dozen or so rotting boyfriends who bust out of the attic and go looking for her.

All of this sounds like the making of a great gothic fantasy, but the pacing of this movie is so deadeningly slow that you could fast forward the movie by hand and it would still be too slow. It has about the interest level of a commercial for draperies. I am sure that this movie has an audience somewhere and I hope they're enjoying their brandy and cigars but for me this a movie that just . . . well, sucks!