Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are rich; beautiful; and oh-so chic as denizens of the night. Dressed in sleek outfits and stylish sunglasses; they haunt rock & roll clubs on the prowl for young blood; whom they bring home to their impossibly luxurious mansion for a late-night snack. Being a vampire never looked more sexy; but there's a price: Bowie starts to age so fast he wrinkles up in the waiting room of a doctor's (Susan Sarandon) office. The agelessly elegant Deneuve; evoking Delphine Seyrig's Countess Bathory from Daughters of Darkness; is perfectly cast as a millenniums-old bloodsucker who seeks a new mate in Sarandon and seduces her in a sunlight-bathed afternoon of smooth; silky sex. Tony Scott's (Ridley's brother) directorial debut; adapted from the Whitley Strieber novel; revises the vampire myth with Egyptian inflections and removes all references to garlic and crosses and wooden stakes--these bloodsuckers can even walk around in the daylight--but the ties between blood and sex are as strong as ever. Scott's background as an award-winning commercial director is evident in every richly textured frame and his densely interwoven editing; but the moody atmosphere comes at the expense of dramatic urgency. At times the film is so languid it becomes mired in its hazy; impeccably designed visual style. In its own way; The Hunger is the perfect vampire film for the '80s; all poise and attitude and surface beauty. Sarandon talks candidly about the film in the documentary The Celluloid Closet. --Sean Axmaker