Movie Review of The Hunger (1983)

When Miriam met John, in 18th century France, she told him that he would live forever.   As a half-human, half-vampire hybrid, he survived two centuries at her side, drinking the blood of their victims.

But during the 1980s, in New York City, John discovers that Miriam didn't tell him the whole truth.  When he begins aging the process is rapid.  From young man to old man in a matter of hours.

It finally occurs to him to ask, if he cannot die, then what happened to her previous lovers and companions?  She grieves for them.  She misses them.  They too once aged rapidly, as he's doing now.  So where are they?

The answer is horrific.  More horrific the more you ponder it.  Miriam weeps for them all.

A solution may lie in 20th century medicine.  Dr Sarah Roberts has become a semi-celebrity for her work on blood and aging.  Plastered all over the television and publishing books on the subject, there is ample opportunity for her to catch the attention of both Miriam and John.

Can she save John in time?   Or will Miriam drag her more fully into their world instead?  Because Miriam cannot be alone.  She's a vampire who was born when Egypt was still young.  She'd get lonely, if she had to go on without a companion, whatever the cost.

Some of the metaphors in The Hunger are so in your face, that you feel slapped by them. 

One fine example is the constant cutting back and forth between Sarah discussing a test subject monkey in her lab, and David Bowie beginning his aging process.  It's not subtle.  We're talking about a monkey infected with a serum which causes premature aging.  We're looking at the identical thing happening to the human-vampire hybrid.  Got it.

But then you recall that AIDS began with monkeys.  It crossed species to infect human beings too.  It was an alien bloodstream, more dominant than that of a healthy human, fighting for supremacy.  A lot like the vampire blood introduced into the likes of John Blaylock.

AIDS is never once mentioned in The Hunger, but it's there anyway.  It's the only vampire movie I've seen where the emphasis is on alien blood destroying a young, virile human; where those transformed don't become full vampires, but retain half of their humanity. 

Victims are picked up in nightclubs.  Gay sex can cause vampirism.  And monkeys have something to do with it.

If you haven't got the hint from the fashion and the filming, then this analogy would have dated this movie precisely.  AIDS first hit the headlines in 1981.  Warnings about it were everywhere during the next five years.  The Hunger was released in 1983 - a vampiric backlash against the horrors of AIDS.

The Bechdel Test asks that two (or more) named female characters have a conversation, which isn't about a male character.  The Hunger passes hands down.

Sarah and Phyllis work together in the laboratory.  They discuss their research and draw conclusions from the results.  They also exchange banter while doing the paperwork.

Miriam and John are coaching Alice in playing the violin.  Miriam and Alice have conversations about music. They also discuss a dozen other things, as Alice enthusiastically shares details about her life, her photography and her family.

Then you get the long sequences between Miriam and Sarah.  This makes up at least half of the movie.  John gets mentioned in passing, but mostly they discuss Sarah's research and her future.  That is if they aren't making passes at each other and glamorously engaging in lesbian sex scenes.

The Hunger is also fairly unusual in the genre insofar as the main vampire is female. This is harking back to the very beginning of vampire legend and folklore, as well as tipping the nod to Christabel and Carmilla along the way.