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I love that this was Tony Scott's first movie, it wasn't something I expected from him, but you do get Scott's visual style. It's very stylish, very atmospheric and mesmerizing. Even if you find the pace slow or boring, you can't help but be enraptured by the beauty of the direction.
The Hunger was a flop but it became a cult classic and Tony Scott took pride in the fact that he got a lot of fan mail from Lesbians who adored the movie.
I also love that Susan Sarandon once said that even though she was straight, you don't turn down Catherine DEneuve. And Deneuve was gorgeous in the movie, classy and mysterious but have her wearing leather and you're in awe.
And Deneuve and David Bowie make the perfect movie couple, they almost look alike. Sarandon looks ravishing as the doctor who comes across a rapidly aging Bowie. When Bowie "dies", Deneuve decides to have Sarandon take over as her partner by seducing and turning her into a vampire, I loved it.
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And it opens with Bauhaus doing a live version of "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The whole film is like a battle of who has the sharpest cheekbones.
Imagine running a business that rents out smoke machines, fans, and spotlights. You would have made a fortune in the 1980s.
“Battle of who has the sharpest cheekbones” is both devastatingly accurate, and an apt description of my taste
EXCUSE ME??? I am THERE
This is the movie that got young me (I was like 13/4) into Bauhaus in the 80s.
Not to tell an old man story about it but I walked a couple miles to the only cool record store in my suburb and had to place a special order for the import CD single which had 2 songs on it and was like $13 in 1980s teenager money (which was a lot)
saying that you had a CD player in the 80s is a bit of flex. the rest of us were trading duped cassettes
Yeah i was lucky to have neighbors who owned a small mowing/landscaping business which allowed me to get a job and some money in my pocket at 13-16
The first 'punk' t-shirt I bought was a Bauhaus shirt because my friend's older brother was a hardcore goth and leant me this movie on VHS.
https://youtu.be/244qvxxy0N0?si=-OQqlSbYxfn86UcA
Shriekback was another cool gothy band. This song was in the movie Band of the Hand.
https://youtu.be/fOSC3RXG25s?si=8_oDLt8bNXy9C4iy
Goddamn all those cheekbones could have taken an eye out.
In the original script, Miriam got Sarah drunk in the process of seduction, but Susan Sarandon had this changed to just one sip of wine because “You wouldn’t have to get drunk to bed Catherine Deneuve. I don’t care what your sexual history to that point had been.”
And by then she had already had sex with an alien transvestite and a monster, so her mind was pretty well opened
We just can't party like the 80s did no more, man.
Only Lovers Left Alive has same vibe. Both excellent with great soundtracks.
I agree! both movies have the sexiest vampires of their generations! I adore Only Lovers, and If someone told me that Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston are really vampires and this movie was them not actually acting I would believe it.
Yes - Tilda plays a very “normal” believable vampire. Tom’s great but will always be Loki to me. How about her sister Mia Wasikowska - could totally be a vampire in real life … ugh so spot on for a bratty little sis. The movie made me put Morocco on a to-visit list.
Spiritual successor!
It's unbelievably stylish. Like, it's the kind of 1980s cool you can't recapture in homage or parody, it's just *too* goddamn cool.
I think Sarandon was irritated by the ending, but tbh I liked it a lot.
Willem Dafoe
2nd Phone Booth Youth
lol
John Pankow is also in the scene - and a year later they both co-starred in To Live and Die in L.A.
One of my best friends and I were baffled that we haven’t seen this or had heard anyone talk about it. Watched it that night and again the next day. Now, it’s one of our faves.
I just love it for Sarandon and Bowie's call and response rap over the credits
"Who got da blood?"
"I GOT DA BLOOD!"
This movie has such an influence on me as a teenager. Describing things as saccharin. Lakmé. "Forever? Forever and ever." I may or may not have strongly encouraged my child to learn the violin part of Trio in E Flat. Also "No Ice" forever burned into my brain.
This is the best opening to a movie ever made. The rest of it is pretty good too!
As a Bowie fan, how tf have I never heard of this
Probably because he's not really in it as much as you'd expect, saying it's a Bowie movie kind of misrepresents it. Sarandon and Deneuve are the leads
My favourite Tony Scott film.
The look of the film is incredible. All sterile blues and grays punctuated by flashes and streaks of red.
It was the first vampire film I watched which blows a hole in a major assumption which all vampire films conveniently make: that eternal life also grants eternal youth automatically.
There is an extended sequence where a young girl is playing a violin/cello and David Bowie is in torment, thinking about feeding on her or not. The tension in that scene could be cut with a knife.
Beautiful film filled with beautiful people!
Amusingly, a friend one time forgot the title and gave the most succinct description ever: "The one where that woman loves a man, then she loves a woman, then she falls out the window and gets old"
Weirdly, my VHS tape got stuck and I could never rewind it beyond that scene...
Tony Scott rules, not a whiff in his entire filmography.
Domino gives me a headache.
Gave me a boner
RIP Tony Scott. Hope he found peace.
Peace