Synopsis

Bauhaus perform "Bela Lugosi's Dead" in a dark, crowded London nightclub while Peter Murphy stalks the stage with theatrical, vampiric intensity. The monochrome performance is intercut with images of David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, whose characters observe the band and select a victim from the audience. Rather than presenting a conventional standalone narrative, the clip uses footage from the opening sequence of the 1983 horror film The Hunger, turning Bauhaus' stark performance into an atmospheric introduction to its world of seduction, decay, and immortality.

Factoids & Trivia

• What is commonly circulated as the music video is essentially an edited version of Bauhaus' performance from the opening of The Hunger, rather than a separately produced promotional film.

• The performance was filmed at Heaven, a London nightclub. The band appears as part of the film's opening sequence, with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve featured among the surrounding vampire imagery.

• The song had already been recorded four years earlier, on January 26, 1979, during Bauhaus' first studio session at Beck Studios in Wellingborough. The band recorded it live in a single take.

• The Hunger connection began after the band's performance of the song on the television program Riverside attracted the attention of the film's creative team. David J. Haskins later recalled that the song was suggested to David Bowie as a suitable fit for the film.

• The film exposure gave the 1979 single a much wider audience. A shortened version associated with the film was later known as "The Hunger Mix."

• The song's use in The Hunger helped cement its reputation as a defining early gothic rock recording and made Peter Murphy's stage performance one of the genre's most recognizable visual moments.

• The original single was released by Small Wonder Records in August 1979 and runs for more than nine minutes, an unusually extended length for a debut single.