The Hunger

Music by Michael Rubini, Denny Jaeger

 

 

 

 

 

Divided between chamber pieces of Schubert, Bach and Delibes, and electronic tracks of the double Michael Rubini and Denny Jaeger the soundtrack of cult The Hunger (1983) is an unclassifiable sound experience of extremes.

The film, starring Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie as a couple of vampires, was successful in its time, with its video-clip aesthetic (counter lights, fragmented editing), became was worshiped as gothic-chic. The soundtrack switches the noise comfort of chamber music pieces (among them the beautiful Lakme of Delibes), to the electronic, abstract and creepy ambient sound. Some tracks only fulfill their role as the climatic Sarah's Panic or Sarah's Transformation. Track Waiting Room creates an emotional vacuum to the scene where Bowie ages in the waiting room. Beach House is one of the highlights of the score. In the film it is heard (in the opening sequence) after song Bela Lugosi's Dead. Doing so Beach House extends the sound / music effects of Bauhau´s song with the guitar simulating grunts of animals and adding vocal improvisations in a memorable spectral results. The pop songs used in the film are not part of the edition released by Varese Sarabande.