The Hunger: The Complete First Season - TV Review

The Hunger was an erotic horror anthology series that ran on Showtime from 1997 to 2000. This series was released in the USA before in a rather haphazard fashion, but this is the first time that a complete season has been packaged together on DVD in the States. The second and final season will be released on October 13, 2009.

The Hunger could probably be best described as a television version of the Hot Blood anthologies. Despite being titled The Hunger, this show had nothing to do with the Whitley Strieber novel or the Tony Scott film of the same name. The idea behind the series was that it was supposed to be thematically similar to the film - namely, a focus on sex and dread - rather than be a direct tie-in. The DVD packaging plays up the vampire angle, but the undead only appear in a handful of the episodes. Tony Scott, the director of The Hunger film, was one of the Executive Producers (along with his brother, Ridley), and he also helmed the first episode, "The Swords." Each episode featured bookends hosted by Terrence Stamp; some people hated his segments, but I found them entertaining.

From a nostalgic point of view, I have a lot of love for this series. When The Hunger first aired, I thought it was one of the coolest shows I had ever seen since most of the episodes were adaptations of horror short stories. And not of public domain "chestnuts," either, but stories written by authors like David Schow, Ron Dee, and Brian Lumley. Sure, the show had a low budget, but...dude! They filmed an episode based on "Red Light?!?" AWESOME!

Ten years later, I was able to watch The Hunger from a more objective standpoint, and frankly it's pretty hit and miss. The quality of each individual episode varies wildly. While the overall series had a low budget, some episodes worked around it while others simply didn't. I am not one to bomb on something simply because it has a low budget, but a couple of the episodes had dodgy special effects that added absolutely nothing to the stories being told.

While the series took most of its inspiration from short stories, some of the episodes were more loosely based on their source material than others. Sometimes the changes worked, sometimes they didn't. Even when it first aired, I was horribly disappointed with the adaptation of Karl Edward Wagner's "A River of Night's Dreaming"; they took out all of the Cthulhu mythos references! On the other hand, the adaptation of Théophile Gautier's "Clarimonde" was surprisingly faithful, especially given the budgetary limitations. But several of the episodes were anticlimactic (pun not intended, given the erotic nature of the series), and others simply ended on a "huh?" note.

So which were my favorite episodes? I really liked the first episode, "The Swords," which updated Robert Aickman's short story to a fetish club setting. The second episode, "Menage A Trois," about a supernatural lust triangle, was also well-done (and based on a story by F. Paul Wilson). "The Secret Shih-Tan" had one of those plot twists that I saw a mile away, but it was nevertheless a fun story. "But At My Back I Always Hear" took a more psychological approach to horror, and succeeded because of it. I also enjoyed the urban decay of "Hidebound." "The Lighthouse," based on the Edgar Allan Poe story that Robert Bloch finished, was solidly presented. And, of course, I already mentioned "Clarimonde," which was not only the best vampire story in the set, but also one of the best-looking episodes as well.

Despite my criticisms, I had a lot of fun watching this series. Plus, the show featured a lot of gorgeous women on display; why lie about it? If you liked the movie The Hunger, or Paul Schrader's Cat People for that matter, you'll probably enjoy this DVD set.