THE HUNGER (1983)

 David Bowie does a very good job here, with the help of some great-looking makeup, playing what is not your classic vampire, but a new(for the 1980s anyway) type of blood-drinking creep. It's all very goth with the band Bauhaus kicking the film off with their gloomy "Bela Lugosi's Dead" tune and Catherine Deneuve playing an immortal Egyptian vampiress. Director Tony Scott, brother of Ridley, gives everything a very BLADE RUNNER-ish artsy-look. You get to see Susan Sarandon's boobs, a very young girl gets viciously snuffed and the ending (forced on Scott by the studio) doesn't make much sense. If they did change the ending a bit I probably woulda dug this a lot more as it is it's still a pretty stylish ride that would probably appeal a little more to 80s-obsessed mopey goth-types than myself.



                             Ultra-fashionable Japanese poster!:

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976)

This British sci-fi flick starring David Bowie as a sad lonely alien who ends up wandering around the Earth trying to get back to his home planet is pretty cool as far as the visuals go but I can't say much for the actual narrative. It's all very uninspiring as the main plot deals with a character who can't relate to the humanity around him and I felt just as unable to relate to Bowie's character while I watched it which doesn't really help make the point that I think the filmmakers were going for. I know our alien here is supposed to be a metaphor for the feeling of alienation within modern society and all that but I just didn't really care enough about what happens since it's all done in such an artsy artificial style. I do give the movie credit for being very out-there and strange which you don't see much in the safe world of sci-fi cookie-cutter movies made after STAR WARS hit, I just personally couldn't get into it. Maybe if I turned off the sound and played some Ziggy Stardust tunes over the visuals it would be more comprehensible. Remade as a TV movie in 87 which I can't imagine was very good.