One of my favorite shows of all time is Tales from the Crypt. Never before and perhaps never since has there been a program like it that worked so well. While other horror anthology shows on basic cable like Tales from the Darkside and Monsters were usually scarier, Tales had that shot-for-HBO gloss to it that made it seem like you were watching a 30-minute horror movie as opposed to a 20-minute TV show. It lasted 5 healthy seasons and 2 sickly ones.
In the wake of all this, I suppose each of the premium networks tried their own spin (including a few more attempts by HBO themselves). Showtime’s entry into the anthology pool was The Hunger, a TV adaptation of Tony Scott’s debut feature. Tony himself along with brother Ridley Scott produced the show, with Tony taking the reigns to direct the premier episode. The Hunger is significant among these shows because it goes a few steps further with the eroticism. There were dozens of episodes of Tales from the Crypt that featured breasts or more, but it rarely if ever developed into full-fledged soft-core porn. The Hunger does, in almost every episode, and in that, it undoes itself.
The reason there were only so many episodes of Tales with nudity or sex was that it didn’t always call for it. While Tales often fell victim to being too predictable in its one-note morality play format, that was due to the stories being adaptations of pulp 50s comic writing. It could be forgiven in its single-mindedness because that’s what it was birthed from. The Hunger makes the same mistake, but can’t recover from it.
In having essentially every episode degenerate into a 3 AM Skinemax special, and be adapted from stupid, then-recent short stories by no-name authors, The Hunger loses any legitimacy it would’ve had if it had side-stepped the sex for more genuine intrigue. So many episodes in this first season set feature a disillusioned or disheartened dope of a guy going on vacation somewhere and falling for a mysterious and beautiful woman who, guess what, turns out to be a vampire/demon/alternative soul-sucking she-bitch. It gets boring after so many episodes of the same predictable bullshit. Occasionally they’ll throw something at you that doesn’t quite fit the formula, but even then you can bet on it being horrible. One episode ("Anais") was so muddled, confusing and terrible that by the end I couldn’t stop laughing. The last line still makes me snicker when I think about the delivery.
The show isn’t without its star power, and the packaging damn well lets you know it. Among those featured are Daniel Craig, Margot Kidder, Karen Black, and Terence Stamp, who serves as host. Daniel Craig’s episode,"Menage A Trois", would be an interesting story if the episode itself weren’t so profoundly uninteresting. That’s the kind of thing you can expect if you pick the set up; aside from a few legitimately sexy scenes in some episodes, you’ll likely find the show unbearably boring. It’s a shame, too, as with the talent involved, a good helping of sex appeal and the Scott's paying the bills, this could have and should have been a great show. As it stands, it’s a drab, stupid dud.
A few notes about the DVDs themselves. I will say that E1 Entertainment should be commended for not breaking my cardinal rule of DVD boxsets. That is, when I take off the slipcover and unfold the packaging, I don’t see the same image more than once (or, in severe cases, more than five times). Whoever supervised these transfers though should be shot. One of the better episodes, Necros, has such appalling contrast issues I’m amazed it got through the screening process. In one of the darker scenes you can see enormous bunches of pixels trying desperately and hopelessly to blend the murky reds with the ugly blacks and failing spectacularly.
DVD Bonus Features
Aside from the image concerns, the other major problem with the set is the special features selection, which inexplicably consists of a behind-the-scenes featurette on the David Bowie-hosted second season and nothing else. Nice job guys.
