henna day post / The Hunger

[gwynnega]

I am hennaing my hair on a pleasant Los Angeles afternoon. We may actually get some badly-needed rain on Tuesday. It's been three weeks since my day job ended, and I'm still adjusting to my new working-at-home schedule, but I'm enjoying it more and more. (This week I will attempt to purchase an ergonomic office chair.)

Last night I watched The Hunger (1983) on TCM. Somehow I didn't see it when it came out or any time in the past 22 years. Visually it could not possibly be more eighties. Red lipstick! Black veils! Sunglasses and sunglasses and more sunglasses! Billowy white drapes! Fluttering doves! (There's a hilarious moment when the shit is hitting the fan and there's a shot of the doves walking across the floor like, "We're outa here!") My friend Carolyn said Susan Sarandon looks like she's in the Human League in this film.

I'd seen Dick Smith's name in the credits, and sure enough, David Bowie's Old Man prosthetic makeup is very similar to that which Smith originally designed for Jonathan Frid for Dark Shadows back in 1967.

I was particularly struck by the title sequence, featuring Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead." It must've launched a thousand Goths in its day (though for the first thirty seconds or so, my reaction was, OMG, the eighties.)

Catherine Deneuve makes an undeniably cool vampire. She and Bowie have chemistry; her chemistry with Susan Sarandon is off the charts. I would've liked the film better if it had ended with Deneuve and Sarandon living happily ever after (or at least for a century or so), but alas, no.

It would be fun to see The Hunger on a double bill with Only Lovers Left Alive.

Comments

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Let's be clear: Catherine Deneuve makes an undeniably cool anyone.

[gwynnega]

This is true.

[usedtobeljs]

I really liked the opening sequence, as I recall. :) The movie got a bit gory for me, however.... But then I can't watch Hannibal either. ;)

Hugs and happy henna-ing!

[gwynnega]

It is pretty gory (though even the gore is very eighties looking!).

::hugs::

[sovay]

(There's a hilarious moment when the shit is hitting the fan and there's a shot of the doves walking across the floor like, "We're outa here!")

I have never seen The Hunger, either, but this review really makes me want to.

[gwynnega]

I'd be interested to read your reaction!

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

and there's a shot of the doves walking across the floor like, "We're outa here!"

Ah, the Scott brothers and their 80s doves.

It would be fun to see The Hunger on a double bill with Only Lovers Left Alive.

This has to happen! It must!

[gwynnega]

I never realized before just how eighties doves can be ("When Doves Cry" notwithstanding!).