DVD Review – The Hunger: The Complete 1st Season
Former Showtime Series Still Disappointment to Horror, Fantasy Fans
Jun 14, 2009
This new release includes all 22 first-season episodes, and from the show’s pedigree – directors Tony and Ridley Scott have their names attached – you’d expect more suspense, surprises and sexiness.
But there’s little genuine eroticism and few plot turns that could be considered either surprising or suspenseful.
Little Connection to 1983 Vampire Film The Hunger
Beyond the title, the show bears zero connection to the 1983 vampire film The Hunger with Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon – itself a disappointing film in its day. While Bowie did host the series’ second season, in the first season, actor Terence Stamp introduces and summarizes each episode.
He does so very, very badly.
Scowly Stamp’s schtick is to play as world-weary and pretentious as possible, while appearing in absurd situations. In one, he lounges on a bed and pontificates about intimacy. In another, he is cooking some small animals on a rotisserie – animals we soon realize are rats.
He’s aiming for mystery and Big Thoughts. He just comes off as a hammy, out of work Euro-trash actor slumming in television.
The Scott Brothers AWOL on the Show
The fingerprints of the Scott Brothers are little in evidence, although Tony directed the first episode, The Swords. Some top writers are associated with the series, including Harlan Ellison, who wrote two episodes.
But in general, the stories meander and the payoffs are weak -- yet the whole series still manages to have a chip on its shoulder.
Producers sought a richer, noirish look and often achieve it. Sadly, the stories don’t match the show’s textured, gothic atmosphere.
Few Vampires in Evidence
In this first season release, there are almost no vampires – and precious little to the “shocking” tales beyond obligatory (and surprisingly uninvolving) sex scenes and lame twists that would have Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock rolling their eyes.
For example, in The Swords, a London tourist gets involved with a woman whose act at a fetish club involves her being safely penetrated through the stomach by a sword.
In Necros, a cocky guy (Philip Casnoff, best known for playing Frank Sinatra in a 1992 TV miniseries) visiting New Orleans becomes fascinated by a sexy woman. The hitch: she’s the concubine of a seemingly evil old man who’s said to be the devil. Here’s a hint: the old guy's a decoy.
Curtis Armstrong as Traveling Salesman
Some episodes are played for laughs. Like Room 17, starring Curtis Armstrong (Ray, Risky Business, TV’s Moonlighting) as a failing traveling salesman supernaturally seduced by a porn actress who pops up on the TV screen in his fleabag motel room. This episode scores the trifecta, managing at once to be unsexy, unsuspenseful and unsurprising in its “twist."
(In this one, host Stamp appears astride a motorcycle. Inside a studio. With a cheesy cloth backdrop behind him. With no connection to the story whatever. As if the producers were running low on budget and did “host wraps” on the cheap.)
Among the few vampire tales in the package is A Matter of Style, which plays the vampire card for yucks. Written by David Shore (creator of the superb Fox series House, M.D.), it stars the always-nebbishy Chad Lowe as a nebbishy newbie vampire shown the blood sucking ropes by a hot she-vampire in a red sports car. Not a single laugh in the piece, and as usual, even the sex scene is dull.
James Bond Actor Daniel Craig Appears in Early Role
A lot of familiar faces pop up in this Canadian-shot series, including Balthazar Getty, Karen Black, Daniel Craig, Jason Scott Lee, Nick Mancuso, Esai Morales, Margot Kidder and Joanna Cassidy.
The four-disc package includes the mini-documentary “The Hunger Inside.” Its inclusion is very confusing because it focuses on David Bowie. Which would be fine, except Bowie wasn’t involved until season two, when he hosted and appeared in several episodes, including one with Giovanni Ribisi.
The set from E1 Entertainment carries a $39.95 retail price tag. It hits stores June 16, 2009.
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