The Hunger

Thirty-minutes TV plays in the soft horror genre, elegant, witty and for the most delicate, with kinky, and, with to some degree creepy points.

The DVD publications (York entertainment)is not at all complete, and messy too, bad edited, with no menues or contents, printed or digital. One of the best stories, "The Sloan Men", are unfortunately not available on DVD, and so "Anais", with host Terence Stamp at his most impressive. I find Terence Stamp much more amusing and icely-ironic than mr. Bowie. Sartorio, Copenhagen

I have seen most of the episodes from the two seasons of "The Hunger" the audacious project in sex and horror of the Scott brothers. Most of the 30 minutes episodes are based on well known horror stories from such terrific sources like Graham Masterton, David Schow, Poppy Brite, Karl Edward Wagner, Brian Lumley, Kim Newman (to name only a few), while directors are often very famous, like Russel Mulcahy or Tony Scott. First season was hosted by Terence Stamp, while the second by David Bowie. Most of the stories have a strong sexual element and almost all of them (especially in the second season) have one or more sex scenes, nudity and very often also graphic violence. Several of stories are really disturbing and among them there also a few masterpieces, like "Wrath of God", "Sin Seer" and "Week Woman" from season two, "Anais", "Necros" and "Bridal Suite" from season one. Apart from a few real turkeys, most of the stories are at least enjoyable for the horror fan and several of them are worth repeated viewings

"The Hunger" is a tour de force of passion and lust. Each tale, poetically introduced by Terrance Stamp in season one and David Bowie in season two, brings us into a world of unbridled, un-inhibited passion. The show preaches no self righteous moral, no great and uplifting message is hidden away and more often than not the ending is far from happy. "The Hunger" illustrates how lust is an essential part of our lives, that it need not be denied but is always dangerous.

Episodes range from the comedic ("Matter of Style"), to Gothic horror ("Necros") and to the perverse ("The Sloan Men"). Based on stores from such talents as horror maestro Graham Masterton ("Bridal Suite" etc…) and directed by a range of highly talented auteur. "The Hunger" is a master class in style from directorial legends and brothers Ridley and Tony Scott.

This one sentence sums up the TV series 'The Hunger':

Big budget softcore aimed at pseudo-intellectuals who cannot admit that they watch porn.

Imagine the worst excesses of mediocre film students: pretentious dialogue, fast cutting, jumping backwards and forwards through the story, endlessly repeating visuals and dialogue, blatant weird sex - and attach it to a generous TV budget. It's TV Hell for anyone with taste. Someone needs to grab hold of the directors and slap them... hard (on second thoughts, they'd probably film it as an episode, so forget it).

Do you think that crass and unsubtle plotting and dialogue linked to gratuitous sex makes interesting points about human nature? Are you deluded enough to think that throwing a camera around fast enough to induce epilepsy and hide the shoddy editing makes you a modern and talented director? If so, The Hunger is for you. Everyone else can go and rent some Playboy tapes - at least they get to the T&A quickly and don't make you feel seasick.

Scott Free produced this series based upon the Tony Scott movie 'The Hunger'.

The meaningless stories have talented directors like Russel Mulcahy or the Scott brothers. Unknown actors and actresses play among the soft-sex, soft-horror elements and the impressive production design.

So if you want sex, see something else. You like mystery? See the 'X-files'. Looking for crime? Stay tuned with 'Columbo'. But don't even waste your time on 'The Hunger'. Unless you want something called 'art'.