The Hunger is a 1983 erotic horror film directed by Tony Scott in his directorial debut, starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. An international co-production of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Peerford Ltd., the film is a loose adaptation of the 1981 novel of the same name by Whitley Strieber, with a screenplay by Ivan Davis and Michael Thomas. Its plot concerns a vampire (Deneuve) who bestows immortality and apparently eternal youth on her lovers. However, the latter proves unreliable, and her lover at the beginning of the film (Bowie) undergoes rapid ageing, leading her to take a new lover, a doctor who specialises in sleep and ageing research (Sarandon).