The Hunger
Edmund P. Cueva(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Will be published approx. on 11. September 2026
Book
Hardback
128 pages
978-1-80781-057-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Hunger (1983) is usually praised for its surface elements: style, soundtrack, erotic cool. What lies beneath that surface is far less comfortable. This book approaches Tony Scott's debut not as a cult artifact, but as a film that touches on anxiety just before it becomes legible. Set on the brink of the AIDS era, The Hunger reimagines vampirism as a condition defined not by power or immortality, but by bodily failure, dependency, and irreversible decline. What appears to promise transcendence instead produces slow destruction. Time does not stop; it accumulates.
Reading the film alongside Whitley Strieber's novel, contemporary medical discourse, queer cultural history, and older mythic narratives of immortality, punishment, and decay, the author argues that in The Hunger, terror lies in what cannot be explained away: the body's slow betrayal and the impossibility of return. The Hunger's lasting power is not aesthetic alone, but structural. It understands horror as endurance rather than shock, and as the knowledge that once the body is claimed, there is no exit.
Reading the film alongside Whitley Strieber's novel, contemporary medical discourse, queer cultural history, and older mythic narratives of immortality, punishment, and decay, the author argues that in The Hunger, terror lies in what cannot be explained away: the body's slow betrayal and the impossibility of return. The Hunger's lasting power is not aesthetic alone, but structural. It understands horror as endurance rather than shock, and as the knowledge that once the body is claimed, there is no exit.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
5 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 190 mm
Width: 135 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80781-057-3 (9781807810573)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Edmund P. Cueva is an award-winning Professor of Classics and Humanities at the University of Houston-Downtown. His interests include the ancient Graeco-Roman novel, myth, and the intersection of ancient literature and the occult.
Content
The Hunger
The Hunger and 1980s America
Mythology and Sex
Not Just Another Vampire Movie!
Appendix: Interview with Mr. Whitley Strieber
The Hunger and 1980s America
Mythology and Sex
Not Just Another Vampire Movie!
Appendix: Interview with Mr. Whitley Strieber