The Hunger - The Diarist

Love doesn’t die…unless you kill it.

Wow. Now this episode of The Hunger was very cinematic and catchy to the eye with its aesthetic, compelling me all the way through. It concerns a young beauty practicing witchcraft, the last of her kind as the grandmother of her line is dying. She has been infatuated and obsessed with some boring guy named Dave (Ian Watson) while his wife, Norissa (Daniella Olivieri), plots to rescue him from the young witch, Merriam’s (Lisa Ann Hadley) “death spell”. If Merriam can’t have him, no one will, including Norissa, engaged to be his wife. Dave had been involved with both women, it seems, choosing Norissa over Merriam. Norissa snookers her way into the employ of Merriam’s “gammer” (Sheena Larkin), eventually gaining her trust. If she can get gammer out of the way, perhaps Norissa could save her man from any witchy nonsense. But Norissa fails to truly realize just how far Merriam is willing to go to get her revenge.

Just a real beaut to gaze at, the direction is sumptuous visually, with art design that is first rate. The women are as stunning as the photography and decorum. The Gothic trappings involved I love to get caught in. Hadley has the curly locks that her face can get lost within…and she gives us this quiet madness that matches her diary narrative confessions. Daniella is fully committed to a man who would have to be damned good in bed in order to tolerate his affair, a lapse in judgment that seems to have encouraged a young woman’s descent into such mental torment she plots hurting him through the use of her family’s black magic. Larkin, as the elder Rusk barely holding on to what little health still remains, appears to have a firm grasp of how time is ticking her to the end. Daniella just kind of helps her along to that end, having access to drink…and poison. Hadley kind of bandies about lost in her own world of envy and silent rage; the camera absolutely loves her, though. Daniella, too, has a face and seductive presence perfectly fit for a painterly canvas. Too bad we get such brief seconds with Daniella’s delicious form when in embrace with Dave. I can’t say anything about Dave begs for Merriam to get all worked up over, but alas…