WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: The Hunger 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.519 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.960 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:15.800 Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.480 Happy Valentine's Day, everybody here in today's episode. You know, 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.200 I really wanted to cover a paranormal love story of 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:28.000 some sort for the holiday, and I gave myself this 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.240 task and probably spend a little bit too much time 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:31.880 looking at different films. I'm trying to figure out what 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.040 would be what felt like the right fit. I looked 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.880 at a few different, very well regarded films that seemed 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.960 to fit the mold, but ended up being drawn into 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.960 today's selection. The highly stylish nineteen eighty three erotic horror 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.760 film The Hunger, a movie that was really only on 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.480 my radar for being a film in which David Bowie 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.440 plays a vampire. But it's actually so much more than 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.120 just that. It's become a cult favorite with many do 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.920 it's heavy goth vibes, it's LGBTQ themes, and it's absolutely 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.760 bursting at the scenes with visual and sonic pizazz. And 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.000 I tell you, I hope you like Venetian Blinds, because 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:13.960 there are a lot of them in this movie. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:18.080 Yes, and doves, JJ was reminded. JJ also watched the 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.840 movie this week and we were talking about it off 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.240 Mike before we started this. JJ reminded me that there 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.600 are just doves in their house all the Time's full 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.600 of birds. They have like an open air attics, just 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.160 birds coming and going all the time. Yes. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.559 Yeah, I watched this one with my wife, and in fact, 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.720 it was partially her suggestion. I was brainstorming all these 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.319 ideas and she pulled up some lists online of paranormal 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:45.800 horror films and she was like, how about The Hunger 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.199 And I was like, oh, well, you know, The Hunger 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.880 has been on my radar a little bit. We've it's 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.920 come up in passing on the show before when we've 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.600 discussed David Billie films, And so she watched it with me. 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:55.520 She really enjoyed it. 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.800 She loved all the like the gothy eighty eighties vibe 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.120 to it. But also she pointed out, like, this feels 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.000 like a feature length music video, and in many ways 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.960 that is absolutely accurate and one of its strengths. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.560 Yeah, yeah, turn around Bright Eyes for ninety minutes or 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.079 a hundred or so. It's but don't let don't get 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.240 the wrong idea from that. I do think this is 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.040 actually a very strong film. I liked it a lot, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.280 despite the fact that critics apparently largely did not appreciate 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.760 it when it came out. But I get the feeling 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.160 this one has has gotten a critical reappraisal, like a 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.480 lot more people like it now than did when it 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:34.359 first released. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.440 Yeah, and I believe that the cult following for it 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.640 was really building up, you know, within the decade following 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.959 its release, so you know, kind of a slow build there, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.720 but I think it achieved cult status by at least 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:49.600 the nineties, as we'll discuss now. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:51.200 One thing I want to say close to the top 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.360 of this episode is despite the fact that The Hunger 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.720 is not especially plot driven, I'd say it's more of 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:02.720 a mood driven or character driven, it does have some 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.480 major surprises in store, and we're gonna have to talk 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.799 about those surprises in the episode, So please be forewarned 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.040 if you want to see The Hunger without having anything spoiled, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.079 and I would recommend that a good time to pause 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:17.959 and go watch the movie would be Now. 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.040 That being said, this movie is so committed to style. 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:23.760 I feel like It's one of those where if you're 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.440 spoiled on it, you can still really enjoy it. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.799 So rob like you. I had never seen The Hunger before, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.760 but I found it very, as I said, surprising, but 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:38.480 also delightful, interesting, different. It felt fresh at its core. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.000 I think you could call this kind of a tainted 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:47.280 love tale. It's a story primarily about romantic relationships, but 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.640 one in which it is not all you know, steamy 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:55.400 arrows and desire and lust like a lot of vampire 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.760 love movies are. It's also not rom com energy. It's 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.200 all cute, falling for you kind of moments. And it's 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.680 certainly not the case that this is full of feel 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.200 good morals about the eternal and all conquering power of love. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.920 This movie, like other tainted love tales, is about the 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:19.160 ambiguities and contradictions of romantic love, the sort of vast 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.280 gray space that defines a lot of what love is, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.520 where people might feel one way but act another, where 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.719 it's impossible to put your emotions into words, you don't 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.120 know how to talk about what you're feeling or what 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:39.080 your frustrations with your love. Are situations in which people 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.360 genuinely love one another, but also cause each other pain, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.440 where love just gets smashed into a million pieces against 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.880 the surface of problems that cannot be fixed. And strangely, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.800 once I realized that was the kind of movie this was, 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.560 it helped resolve something curious I noticed while watching The Hunger. 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.400 Despite the fact that this movie has a different writer, 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.839 a different director, totally different plot, and for much of 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.919 its runtime a different star, I really kept being reminded 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.120 of the other big David Bowie movie we have watched 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.560 on the show, which was The Man Who Fell to 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.280 Earth from nineteen seventy six, directed by Nicholas Rogue. That 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.000 movie stars David Bowie as a tragic alien agent on 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.520 a mission to Earth to secure water resources which could 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.960 save his home planet. But of course, that ultimately is 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.960 a story about failure, you know, about distraction and the 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.240 inability to sort of stay on task and getting led 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:42.159 astray by television and alcohol and love and all. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:43.920 That and table tennis right. 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.240 Exactly, Yes, So I was thinking while I was watching it, 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.440 why did these movies feel so similar despite all the 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.600 totally different creative inputs. Could it just be that the 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.599 power of David Bowie is so strong that it paves 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.400 over everything that might be a little part of it, 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.120 but I really think there are some other truly strong 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.839 similarities in that both stories involve these tainted love themes. 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.839 They're both love stories that have genuine feeling and passion 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.400 in them. They're not just about people using each other 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.520 for sex or for power or whatever. They are love stories, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.400 but they're also tragic love stories that cannot possibly have 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.760 happy endings, in part because of the sci fi or 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.240 supernatural mechanics that are operating in each story, and in 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.880 part because of the kinds of human failings and contradictions 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.000 that are present in all relationships of mortal humans, not 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.320 just aliens and vampires. And I guess, since it's been 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.520 a while, just a refresher. The love story central in 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.119 The Man Who Fell to Earth is the one between 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.960 David Bowie's alien character and an earthling played by Candy Clark. 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:54.440 That story is at once both genuine and doomed, doomed 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.080 by Bowie's alien mission and then by the pressures of 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:03.000 money and betrayal and alcoholism. In The Hunger, I think 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.760 one of the central thematic tainted love questions is what 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.680 if you could only be with the person you love 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.600 by dooming them to a fate worse than death if 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.600 you choose to do it anyway, if you choose to 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.640 be with them knowing that your love is an unspeakable curse, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.040 could it really be love? But at the same time, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.600 could it really be love if you could stand not 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.120 to be with them in the first place. I guess 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.880 we'll have to answer those questions as we go on 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.240 throughout the episode. But another similarity I would say between 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.680 The Men Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger is 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.640 certain the presence of certain cinematography choices. Both of them 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.600 are very mood driven, and they both have a kind 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.160 of dreamy, elegic editing style with a lot of slow 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:55.400 motion and lingering on wistful and melancholy scenes featuring two 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.800 subjects who are suffering but who are unable to fix 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:01.120 one what's wrong between them? 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.840 Yeah, it's worth noting. In the commentary track which I 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.400 listened to, part of the director Tony Scott does mention 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.400 Nicholas Rogue, the director of The Man Who Fell to Earth, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.600 being one of his inspirations, though he singles out the 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.680 film performance more than anything. But of course the Man 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.880 Who Felt to Earth is still in the mix. There somewhere, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:21.600 I imagine. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:24.480 On the other hand, I would say The Hunger does 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.440 not have like the comic elements that we got in 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.520 The Manufeld to Earth when he's watching all the TVs 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.760 and screaming, get out of my mind. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.320 Yeah, there's not really much in the way of humor 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.600 in this picture, and I think that's one of the 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.320 things that the critics kind of picked up on. They 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.080 thought it was like too self serious, which I don't know. 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.080 I feel like, if you're dealing with a story like 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.000 this and you're dealing with, you know, these all these 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.720 gothic vibes on top of it, like, I don't know, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.280 I don't think I really was wanting any comic relief 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:55.960 in this picture. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.480 I certainly was not hurting for want of comic relief. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.800 And no, this movie doesn't need that. It's just not 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:07.400 its style. It's not what it's about. Another surprising element 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.960 I found about The Hunger, at least a violation of 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:16.559 my expectations going in, was the relatively grounded science fiction subplot. 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:19.800 Did not think it would have that kind of thing happening. 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.120 So this will require some discussion of the plot, but 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:25.640 I guess it's good to lay out a bit of 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.760 the premise here at the top, because we can refer 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.680 back to that as we talk about the cast and 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.800 so forth. So two of the main characters of this 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:37.680 movie begin the story as vampires, as vampire lovers, and 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.720 they are faced with a unique consequence of their condition. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.360 In the lore of this movie, the vampires spawn enjoys 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:53.520 a long life of suspended youth and vitality for perhaps 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.360 hundreds of years, but at some point it all comes 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.720 crashing down as a kind of rapid degenerative aging disease, 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:07.240 where the vampire spawn suddenly grows old and withers into 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:12.520 a powerless but still conscious, crumbling husk over the course 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.360 of a few days or weeks. So in the movie, 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.920 Catherine Denov plays a sort of vampire queen of ancient 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.720 but otherwise uncertain origins named Miriam, who is in a 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.679 centuries long love affair with her vampire spawn, John played 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.280 by David Bowie. Originally a man, she turned into a 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.960 vampire sometime in Europe in the seventeen hundreds. There's like 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.520 a scene of them kissing in a barn in powdered wigs, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.800 and so the situation is while they seem to have 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.240 been happy and ageless, hunting for blood together for hundreds 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.240 of years. Suddenly, in the modern day setting of the 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.400 film in New York in the nineteen eighties, John finds 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:01.080 himself rapidly aging, and he seems to know this was 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.800 something that could happen to him one day, but obviously 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.480 it leaves him greatly demoralized and distressed. So this brings 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.400 him into contact with another one of our major characters, 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:18.000 Sarah Roberts played by Susan Sarandon, who is a research scientist. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.720 She's a gerontologist studying diseases that cause accelerated aging, and 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.240 her work provides some hope of a way to stop 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.439 the advance of the cellular clock and arrest the rapid 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.119 advance of age and decay, and so as John desperately 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.480 seeks her help, she becomes entangled in the lives of 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.199 these vampires. She doesn't initially know their vampires, of course, 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:46.280 and it becomes more than just the kind of mechanical 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.920 science fiction connection to the story, like she becomes romantically 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.480 involved as well. But it was so strange to me 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.120 that the movie ended up having so much having as 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.079 much science fiction as it did, and also the form 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.040 the science fiction, because it was not the kind of 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.920 you know, the kind of loose fantasy science fiction that 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:07.880 you get in The Man Who Fell to Earth. It's 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.600 instead a story about like research scientists in their lab 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.760 doing experiments on monkeys. And we can come back to 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.880 that later. But like some of the goorioesst and grossest 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.880 stuff in the movie is not from the horror premise. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:22.560 It's from the sci fi premise. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.480 Yeah, yeah, it's so as we'll get to in more 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.640 detail in a bet. This is based on a novel, 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.560 a nineteen eighty one novel by Whitley Streiber, And it's 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.560 my understanding that the original novel is essentially one of 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.480 these kind of like how would this work treatments of 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.200 vamporism with sci fi elements bag backing it up, And 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.440 I'm to understand that the script for the picture ended 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.640 up drifting somewhat away from that vision, and then Tony 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.760 Scott's direction and the work of all the other talented 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.280 folks involved in like the visual and sonic flare of 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.600 the picture are able to bring it into more of 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.920 a territory. So, you know, it's kind of an interesting 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.400 trajectory to like maybe start in something that's a little 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.000 more grounded in the sci fi and ending up via 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.439 a curve, ending up with something more surreal and ambiguous, 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:14.959 but the sci fi roots are still present. 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:20.120 Yeah, totally. But it creates such an an unusual and 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.640 interesting millage of themes. It's just it doesn't really feel 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.200 like any other movie I can think of. 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.480 Yeah, it really does stand apart. And I think that's 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:30.840 one of the reasons that it just so instantly captivated me. 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.400 Because some of the other pictures I was checking out, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.680 they they felt more like a definite artifact of their time, 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.559 and or they fit more clearly into genres that we're already, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.440 you know, more familiar with on the show. And this one, Yeah, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.559 it really stood out. It seemed to have a different 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.640 vision and exist in its own sonic and visual universe. 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:58.080 Now, another big surprise that this movie had for me 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.800 is that I really expect there to be more David 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.760 Bowie in this David Bowie movie. He almost gets the 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.840 treatment of Steven Sagall an executive decision. Maybe that's a 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.560 horrible comparison, Maybe more like Drew Barrymore in Scream or 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.240 Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. Though of course 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.680 all of those characters, what happens is they die. The 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.800 fate of David Bowie's character in this movie is even 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.920 more tragic and horrifying than death. But I think it's 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.320 interesting that I don't know if there's a formal showbiz 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.120 term for this, but I would call it like a 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.480 meta shock. You know, it is a violation of your expectations, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.440 which are established. Those expectations are established not through the 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.360 narrative of the movie itself, but through your real world 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.760 and knowledge of the movie's marketing context. So, for example, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.520 it is a surprising move to kill off the character 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.160 played by the big star, the presence of whom ostensibly 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.760 brought people into the movie theaters in the first place. 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.120 That's always a surprising move. It's a bold and gutsy 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.080 move usually, though I think it's a lot less gimmicky 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.520 in The Hunger than it is in most of these 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:14.560 metashock deaths you get in the film industry. In this movie, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.479 it it feels less like a gimmicky attempt at surprise, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.760 and instead it emphasizes the movie's kind of shadow themes 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:28.000 of unfairness and the injustice of love and of real life. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.920 Yeah. Absolutely, and I do want to stress for anyone 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.200 out there who happens to be interested in The Hunger 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.960 primarily because of David Bowie, still valid reason to be 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.920 interested in this film. David Bowie will not disappoint you. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.920 The role. May have less screen time than you expected, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.480 but he still makes the most of that screen time. 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.960 So definitely worth checking out for Bowie fans. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.040 Though also for some of the screen time he does have, 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.680 he looks like Richard Lynch or he looks like he Oh, 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.200 this is an unkind comparison, but he looks like a 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.920 better version of Guy Pearce and the old man makeup 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:03.880 in Prometheus. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.000 Yeah, that's a great observation. But you know, Prometheus didn't 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:12.800 have Dick Smith. As we'll be discussing special effects makeup master. 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.360 Dick Smith is largely responsible for the aging of David 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.960 Bowie in this picture. And I think it was Tony 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.240 Scott on the commentary track pointing out how or maybe 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:27.360 it was a maybe with Susan's frand and somebody's pointing 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:29.400 out how he's under so much makeup for parts of this. 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.520 But Bowie would just go to sleep in the chair 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.800 like he was like super easy going while they were 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.760 applying you know, hours upon hours of makeup and yeah, 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.640 and nobody did it better than Dick Smith. 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.400 It is really great old man makeup, way better than 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.040 all the other examples I can think of. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.200 All right, well, more on that in a bit, but 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.760 first let's go ahead and roll out the elevator pitch. 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.840 As the song will play a huge role in the 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.320 opening sequence of a picture. I'm just going to quote 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.080 a few lines from the nineteen eighty two goth rock 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.400 hit Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bowhouse with one pronoun change 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.720 to make it fit better. The virginal brides file past 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.800 her tomb strewn with times, dead flowers, bereft in deathly Bloom, 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.359 alone in a darkened room, the. 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:19.679 Count bereft in deathly Bloom. Yes, exactly. Oh what a delivery. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:21.399 Who's the singer of bow House. 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.080 That's Peter Murphy and we'll sleep. We'll see Peter Murphy 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.240 in the opening sequence. 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.880 Here, tremendous flat delivery there, very good. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.639 Yeah, I mean, it's a class it's it's probably one of, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.920 if not the best known, you know, goth tracks out there. 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.440 Like if you're going to do a goth dance night 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.080 at a club or something, they need to play Bella 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.080 Lugosi's dead at least for a little bit. Maybe not 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.520 the whole with like nine and a half minute runtime, 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.159 but even still, like, yeah, go ahead and do the 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.880 nine and a half minute runtime, because the whole song's tremendous. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.280 All right, we'll come back to bow House in a bit, 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:55.680 but first let's go ahead and listen to a little 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.960 bit of trailer audio from The Hunger. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:05.920 Sarah Roberts is in jeopardy. 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:07.639 Hey lady, how about it? 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.960 Stay with her? Help her, for she has begun to feel. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.240 The awful horror of the Hunger. 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:22.320 John Blaylock, the Hunger has given him everlasting life until now. 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:28.119 Pray for him. Miriam Blaylock. She feeds one day in 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.880 seven on the unsuspecting, and soon she will turn into 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.199 something that you will never be able to forget, no 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.359 matter how hard and how long you try fear her? 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.000 What have you done to me. 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:57.560 For her life? Signs terminate right here? 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:15.320 Haunting, mysterious, sensual, strange, perverse, riveting The Hunger? 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.200 All right, Well, if you would like to watch The Hunger, well, 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.320 luckily for you, it's widely available on digital formats as 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.320 well as home video formats. There's a Blu ray, and 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:36.760 I was gonna rent the Blu ray, but it was 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:38.480 checked out when I dropped by Video Drum, so I 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.240 ended up having to make do with the DVD version, 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.159 which was also solid. I believe both the Blue and 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:47.080 the DVD feature the same commentary track, which is a 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:52.879 bit dry but still informative, featuring both Tony Scott and 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.119 Susan Sarandon, though it sounds like maybe they weren't in 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.440 the same room, like they recorded them separately and kind 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.119 of like splice them in. So if you like a 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.560 nice boisterous commentary track, that maybe this one isn't the one, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.720 but it's still a lot of great info in it. 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.199 All right, Well, let's run through the people involved here, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.080 or at least some of them. We can't touch on 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.400 everybody as usual. But the director is, of course Tony Scott. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.080 As previously mentioned, he lived nineteen forty four through twenty twelve, 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.680 the late younger brother of Ridley Scott, who like his brother, 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.240 came up through British TV commercial production before branching out 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:39.959 into films, and this was his first feature theatrical film, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.840 and it really throws everything at you from a stylistic standpoint, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.400 it's flashy, it's sexy, it's daring, it's somber, it's serious. 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.919 It delivers all the flare of a music video or 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.240 a high end commercial, and as we alluded to at 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.399 the time of its release, it was not a success. 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.880 Critics panned it, including Roger Ebert, who called it quote 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:04.840 an agonizingly bad vampire movie, circling around an exquisitely effective 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:05.560 sex scene. 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:07.560 Which sex scene. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.720 I assume it has to be the big love scene 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.960 between Sarah and Miriam, which I mean, it's almost I 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.000 think a disservice to call it a quote unquote sex 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.639 scene because it's so stylish. It is like like the 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.879 like the bed is glowing. I think one point, you know, 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.679 it's like it's it's very surreal. It's not it's not 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.200 raw or explicit, but it is still you know, highly 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.760 erotic and just. And to Ebert's point, it is effective. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:40.320 But I also don't feel like it comes off as 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.159 an oasis in a desert in this film or anything 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:44.000 to that extent. 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:46.960 No, I just would not agree with Ebert on this one. 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.919 I think the film overall has a lot more to offer. Sorry, 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.160 just now that we're on the subject, of Tony Scott. 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:57.200 I was repeatedly thinking to myself while watching, I can't 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.960 believe this is made by the same director as Top Gun. 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.080 I mean, it is crazy to think about this, right 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.800 because Top Gun, which was his follow up, what four 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:11.040 years later, that was the next time that the studios 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:11.880 gave him a shot at. 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:13.560 A film, like three years later. 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.320 We always say, well, what this one's eighty would have 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:20.040 been made in what an eighty two and either yeah, 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:22.359 three or four years, so he didn't have to wait 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.320 that long. But still he was kind of shut out 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.400 for a little bit there. But then he comes out 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.879 of the gate with again with Top Gun, which of 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.440 course is a massive hit. It was the highest grossing 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.760 film domestic or otherwise for nineteen eighty six. That's a 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.000 film that cemented Cruise's ascension into long lasting fame and 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:46.639 established Scott as not a director of erotic horror, but 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.959 as an action and thriller director. You know, because when 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:51.879 you think about Tony Scott, those tend to be the 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:53.920 films you think about. You think about things like eighty 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.959 seven's Beverly Hills Cop two, nineteen nineties Days of Thunder, 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.119 ninety three's True Romance, Crimson Tied ninety eight, Enemy of 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.159 the State, two thousand and four's Man on Fire, or 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.479 his final film twenty ten's Unstoppable. But yeah, compare this 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:15.960 film to top Gun and I'm yeah, like, what connective 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.080 tissue is there? Really? I mean, I'm sure you could 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.000 probably get down and point to some of the stylistic 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:25.000 touches that are distinctly Tony Scott, But it does kind 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.720