The undead are horny and bi-curious in 1983’s goth-erotic horror ‘The Hunger’
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” We continue through our Pride series in which we cover a movie highlighting a different letter of the LGBTQ+ acronym every week.
This week, it’s all about the elusive and often erased “B” with ageless vampires, neo-noir-meets-techno-punk aesthetics, and a (blood)thirsty love triangle in Tony Scott’s cult classic The Hunger.Immortality is a very common theme often explored in horror and supernatural narratives: What would it look like if you could live forever?
What would it feel like if you could stay forever young? Cinema has grappled with this almost from its inception, with sci-fi, horror, and fantasy narratives that range from Gattaca and Tuck Everlasting to camp classics like Death Becomes Her and Interview With The Vampire.Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.Not to mention, the theme’s many dark implications—issues of fear and insecurity around the gradual fading of health and good looks, prolonged loneliness, difficulty of finding companionship—tend to be quite relevant to the queer community, particularly in the wake of the AIDS epidemic.This week, we’ll talk about a movie that has made an unlikely stamp in popular culture, one that at its undying heart tackles the all-important question essential in every story about an immortal being: How can you possibly share eternity with somebody else?The Hunger is a 1983 erotic horror film, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Tony Scott (yes, brother of Ridley), marking his feature debut.
It follows Miriam and John Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie), a couple of supernaturally attractive (and ageless) vampires—despite never being openly referred to as such.
