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Feasting on 'The Hunger: The Complete First Season' DVD
by Reg Seeton
 Now
out on DVD as of June 16, The Hunger: The Complete
First Season, the seductive, erotic, and frightening
late '90s Showtime supernatural, thriller mystery
anthology hosted by Terence Stamp, is one of the
best examples of how everything that's old can
truly become new again in a completely different
era. In fact, I can't think of a better time for
the folks at E1 Entertainment to release The Hunger
given the extreme popularity of all things vampires
thanks to the Twilight Saga. However, for younger
fans reading this, Twilight this is not. The Hunger
will actually give you nightmares.
Presented in similar anthology format as Masters of Horror, Tales from the Crypt, and The Outer Limits, The Hunger certainly left its own unique legacy within cult circles but failed to capture similar audience attention as other more mainstream '90s resuscitations of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, with Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Dark Side also dominating the TV anthology market at the time. But ...
Having recently revisited the first season of The Hunger for the first time in over a decade, a lot of revealing and insightful things have fallen into place. First, for those who don't know, The Hunger was executive produced by Ridley and Tony Scott through their Scott Free production company. Second, The Hunger was largely a Canadian based production created in a vastly different era. Third, which combines the first and second, The Hunger was much better suited for European audiences than North American viewers. In fact, given how Canadian based productions were shot in the '90s, most had a visual quality and style akin to shows produced for the BBC that looked more like daytime soap operas than primetime counterparts.
Also, given the diversity of themes within some of the episodes - erotica, murder, vampirism, temptation, cannibalism, sex, blood, mysticism, and a slew of gender challenging issues - I'm surprised The Hunger found any success at the time. In some ways, in relation to the underlying cerebral terror throughout the series, The Hunger now reminds me of a disturbing British anthology series called Tales of the Unexpected, which makes sense given the show's many UK influences. Although The Hunger took some flack over its quality, looking back now after seeing the series over a decade later, much of that is largely an excuse. Was it the best anthology series of all time? No, but it wasn't quite as safe as some of the more mainstream anthology series either.
The show's strongest quality was (and still is on DVD) its star power on all fronts. Aside from the directing talents of Tony Scott (Top Gun, Man on Fire), Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), Christian Dugay (Hitler: The Rise of Evil, Screamers), Tom Dey (Shanghai Noon, Failure to Launch), and Jake Scott (videos for Soundgarden, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, U2), episodes of The Hunger were penned by some of the best horror/fantasy fiction writers of the past 50 years, which include Harlan Ellison, Graham Masterton, The Crow scribe David Schow, and Lost Souls and Exquisite Corpse author, Poppy Z. Brite. But where The Hunger becomes more relatable to today's TV viewers is in its star-studded guest cast, which includes the Daniel Craig, Lena Headey, Karen Black (all in "Ménage a Trois"), Balthazar Getty, Jason Scott Lee, Sally Kirkland, Karen Elkin, Colin Ferguson, Nick Mancuso, Michael Gross (of Family Ties fame), Esai Morales, Margot Kidder, Chad Lowe, Bruce Davison, stage beauty Amanda Ryan, and many more.
What's most fascinating, and shocking for those not familiar with the series, The Hunger showcases some of today's well known stars in wildly bizarre stories and roles well beyond the mainstream. From Amanda Ryan as an often nude stripper who has the ability to allow swords to enter her body to Lena Headey in a story involving sex through a woman in a wheelchair to Karen Elkin who leans Colin Ferguson becomes an undead bed who satisfies the desires of its owner, The Hunger is full-on bizarre awesomeness if you love out-of-the-norm nightmares in the fringes of the mind. Given the many open social advances of what's acceptable for TV consumption and what TV audiences demand in today's modern television times, The Hunger fits much better in today's fantasy climate than the insecure, pre-cable days of 1997.
 Although
The Hunger doesn't quite rise to a level of
technical greatness in its 1.33:1 transfer and
standard Dolby Digital audio mix, it's still
leagues ahead of what fans of the show experienced
during its original run on TV. Splitting hairs
over specs of grain and dust on a video transfer
is ridiculous. DVDs are of different visual
quality for a variety of reasons. I've reviewed
thousands of DVDs in a 10-year period and can
count the ones that were unwatchable on one
hand - The Hunger isn't one of them. In fact,
like I mentioned above, since The Hunger was
largely a Canadian production, with some in
the UK, the source was of lower budget quality
to begin with. Transferred to DVD, all 22 episodes
look better than '90s TV broadcast quality,
which won't be enough for some but certainly
enough for those fans who followed. Interestingly,
to put things into perspective, many criticized
the quality of The Hunger because it was a Canadian
production in 1997 yet lauded Masters of Horror
in 2006. Guess where Masters of Horror was filmed?
For that matter, guess where The Outer Limits,
Masters of Science Fiction, and the new Twilight
Zone were filmed?
As for the extras on The Hunger: The Complete First Season, the four-disc set includes one featurette called "The Hunger Inside," which offers up a behind-the-scenes look at the following season with The Hunger Season 2 host David Bowie who educates the uninitiated on the series with a look at what was in store in 1998, which was the final season of the show. Seeing Bowie is cool, and the best part, but it's more promotional than hardcore Hunger. A Harlan Ellison commentary is too much to ask for but a few words from Tony Scott or one of the many guest stars would have made the extras more meaningful and significant. Although The Hunger is far from perfect, it stands out from its anthology peers in bold, fearless, and push the envelope creativity that you only see once or twice a decade when some of the best genre minds of the current time gather to see what they can come up with. And really, to put it into simple terms, if you like f**ked up fantasy horror with nudity, erotica and gothic weirdness, you'll love The Hunger.
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