Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987): USA

Reviewed by Richard Feilden.  Viewed on DVD.

Some films are hard to categorize.  You know that they are genre pieces, but what genre, or more often genres, do they fit into?  This is definitely true of Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark.  While the film is ostensibly a horror movie, there is more than a little western thrown in, along with a coming of age story and a bit of thriller to boot.  The confusion continues with the film’s insistence on rebelling against convention and cliché, to the point that not only is the word ‘vampire’ not uttered at any point in this vampire flick, but you never see a single fang!  In fact, the only thing that I can be sure of is that, flawed though it certainly is, this is my favourite vampire flick!
Near Dark stars a young Adrian Pasdar (who can currently be seen in television’s Heroes) as Caleb, a modern day small town cowboy.  An encounter with a pretty stranger leads to him getting a little more than he bargained for.  The girl, Mae (Jenny Wright), is the most recent addition to a traveling ‘family’ of vampires; with an over-enthusiastic love bite from Mae, Caleb is unwillingly inducted into the clan.  To make matters worse, his new family doesn’t seem pleased to find their numbers swelling…

Finger Lickin’ good!

The other vampires in Caleb’s new family are what really make the film work.  Chief amongst these is Bill Paxton playing Severen, a red-neck vamp with a thing for spurs.  Paxton really goes to town with the role, turning Severen into a force of nature.  Whether he is complaining about the unshaven nature of a victim or stirring up trouble with the patrons of a bar, Paxton is a joy to watch.  He brings the film to life every time he is on screen.  Yes, he is hamming it up a little, but I’d complain about overacting in this case about as quickly as I would in Jack Nicholson’s Joker.  Rounding out the family is Jesse (Lance Henriksen), Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein) and Homer (Joshua Miller), all of whom seem to be having a lot of fun as immortal troublemakers.

Listen to the night, it’s deafening…

The film is expressively and beautifully shot by cinematographer Adam Greenberg.  This should come as little surprise, given that Greenberg has also been responsible for work on the first two Terminator films, Rush Hour and many other big features.  Here he manages to bring the nocturnal world of the blood suckers to life, giving us crystal clear night time shots contrasted with indistinct, washed-out daytime fare.  The soundtrack adds to this atmosphere, with moody, ethereal work from Tangerine Dream tying the film together.

As I said though, the film is definitely flawed.  Both the opening and the closing are a bit rocky, with the end in particular feeling like a bit of a cop-out.  But Paxton’s one-liner delivery and the atmosphere oozing from the film make up for these problems with ease.  If you fancy a horror film that is just a little bit different from the norm, you can’t go wrong with Near Dark.