Macabro Monday: Bowie Was the Best Vampire in the World

By Chuck Pereda for www.elsalvavidas.mx (Note from January 11)

By now, we all already know: David Bowie passed away yesterday (Sunday, January 10), just a few days after releasing what is now his final album, Blackstar. What we tend to forget is that Bowie was a great actor who was just as likely to develop a sadomasochistic relationship with Ryuichi Sakamoto in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as to fall to earth in the gorgeous, striking film by Nicolas Roeg, or to make things absolutely miserable for Jennifer Conelly in Labyrinth.

However, horror fans who have never seen The Hunger should run out and get themselves a copy for several reasons, a few of which I'll mention in this quick little note:Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon were at the peak of their beauty, and it's one of the most striking love triangles in cinema. The special effects are especially well done, considering the film is 33 years old. More specifically (without spoiling the film with spoilers) the transformation of Bowie into someone progressively older is pretty convincing.

Bauhaus performs Bela Lugosi’s Dead in the opening scene, without a doubt one of the best film intros in many, many years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKRJfIPiJGY (abre en nueva pestaña)

It's perhaps the best (and curiously least known) film by Tony Scott, the brother of Ridley Scott, who took his own life in 2012. But we're talking about a guy who, in his prime, directed The Last Boy Scout, True Romance and Man on Fire.

Bowie is the best vampire in the world, period — that same elusive quality that let him play an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth and king of the goblins in Labyrinth is what makes him a better vampire than the insufferable Tom Cruise as Lestat — he does, unlike the pint-sized king of action movies, have an air of nobility that would have suited the Rice adaptation well.

Here's the trailer to get you excited about picking it up in one of its many editions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IDoAPC6Ps (abre en nueva pestaña)