![\"\"](\"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/severen.jpg\" "\\"severen\\"")
<\/a>Some films are hard to categorize.\u00a0 You know that they are genre pieces, but what genre, or more often genres, do they fit into? \u00a0This is definitely true of Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Near Dark<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The confusion continues with the film\u2019s insistence on rebelling against convention and clich\u00e9, to the point that not only is the word \u2018vampire\u2019 not uttered at any point in this vampire flick, but you never see a single fang!\u00a0 In fact, the only thing that I can be sure of is that, flawed though it certainly is, this is my favourite vampire flick!\nNear Dark stars a young Adrian Pasdar (who can currently be seen in television\u2019s Heroes) as Caleb, a modern day small town cowboy.\u00a0 An encounter with a pretty stranger leads to him getting a little more than he bargained for.\u00a0 The girl, Mae (Jenny Wright), is the most recent addition to a traveling \u2018family\u2019 of vampires; with an over-enthusiastic love bite from Mae, Caleb is unwillingly inducted into the clan.\u00a0 To make matters worse, his new family doesn\u2019t seem pleased to find their numbers swelling\u2026<\/p>\n
Finger Lickin\u2019 good! The other vampires in Caleb\u2019s new family are what really make the film work.\u00a0 Chief amongst these is Bill Paxton playing Severen, a red-neck vamp with a thing for spurs.\u00a0 Paxton really goes to town with the role, turning Severen into a force of nature.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He brings the film to life every time he is on screen.\u00a0 Yes, he is hamming it up a little, but I\u2019d complain about overacting in this case about as quickly as I would in Jack Nicholson\u2019s Joker.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Listen to the night, it\u2019s deafening\u2026 The film is expressively and beautifully shot by cinematographer Adam Greenberg.\u00a0 This should come as little surprise, given that Greenberg has also been responsible for work on the first two Terminator<\/span> films, Rush Hour<\/span> and many other big features.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The soundtrack adds to this atmosphere, with moody, ethereal work from Tangerine Dream tying the film together.<\/p>\n As I said though, the film is definitely flawed.\u00a0 Both the opening and the closing are a bit rocky, with the end in particular feeling like a bit of a cop-out. \u00a0But Paxton\u2019s one-liner delivery and the atmosphere oozing from the film make up for these problems with ease.\u00a0 If you fancy a horror film that is just a little bit different from the norm, you can’t go wrong with Near Dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Richard Feilden.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. Some films are hard to categorize.\u00a0 You know that they are genre pieces, but what genre, or more often genres, do they fit into? \u00a0This is definitely true of Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Near Dark.\u00a0 While the film is ostensibly a horror movie, there is more than a little western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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