à-vis the vampire-film genre, where and how it mediates and navigates the aesthetics of film order and film innovation, whether by way of narrative content, style, or pattern of ideas.
A useful point of departure in The Hunger is the recurrence of reflected images, in particular faces in the mirror but also of behavior. At one level, this behavior is a feature of what occurs as characters mirror and model one another. At another, it is the behavior intrinsic to the genre of horror movies in general and vampire cinema in particular. As Cohen anticipates for what he calls controlling metaphors in film (212), the reflected image in The Hunger functions something like a master metaphor for the principle of reflection and replication, not only as an element of visual narration but also in respect of the master vampire narrative that became part of popular culture over the course of the 20th century.
To see how the recursive image of the mirror operates in The Hunger, it is useful to first identify the patterns of occurrence of reflected images in the film. Table 1 categorizes these patterns.
Sunglasses of Miriam (M), John (J) reflect light in the club, including disco's strobe lights, and in first victims' room
Mirror action: Intercut between monkey mad scene and M,J taking the 2 disco victims, including monkey's clawing of carotid artery
Mirror action: Ankh use of M,J replicated with victims
Mirror action: Sarah (S) fingers through hair; intercut with M running fingers through J's hair; S, M, J identical smoking behavior
Mirror panel opening onto flashback of 18th-century musical trio
Mirror action: Research center monkey's lack of sleep for 56 hours, intercut with J's insomnia
J watching M sleep, remembering seduction, looks in long mirror briefly
S's reflection on talk show's shiny table top
J closely examines his face in flip mirror; an index of the passage of time
S using compact mirror; sees J in ba...