Search - Near Dark on DVD

A Fantastic Neo-Vampire Western

Jordan | USA | 10/17/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A young good ol' boy (Pasdar) meets a beautiful down-home girl (Wright) and spends the night wooing her. At the break of dawn, the girl becomes increasingly worried, and the boy asks for a kiss. She obliges with a passionate, tonguey display, and then she bites him on the throat.

With this, the fantastic neo-vampire western Near Dark begins. The cast is an '80s/early '90s sci-fi fan's wet dream (well, almost), featuring Lance Henrikson, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein, who collectively appeared in Aliens, Alien3, The Terminator, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Almost all your basic vampire elements are here: throat-biting, blood-sucking, fear of daylight, eternal life, etc. However, the bloodsuckers don't have fangs, capes, or pale white skin (which actually doesn't make much sense), and there's never any reference to not having reflections. Instead, the vampires are basically modern southern folk, but obviously with a dark side. It is made quite apparent throughout the film, however, that they have been around for quite some time, as it is mentioned that they started the great Chicago fire and that one of them fought for the South in the Civil War. The vampire clan includes Jessie (Henrikson), the oldest (on the outside) and the wise leader of the group; Diamondback (Goldstein), apparently Jessie's girlfriend (of many years); Severen (Paxton), the leather-clad bada*s of the group; Mae (Wright), the innocent young female of the group; and Homer (Miller), a young boy on the outside but the oldest of them all on the inside.

These characters offer plenty of fun interactions and one-liners, but this is no horror comedy. There is a considerable amount of very bloody violence, including a scene (probably the most memorable one in the film) where the clan visits a bar and subsequently murders all of its patrons. To give you an idea of just what kind of violence we're talking about here, I'll just say that Jessie orders a beer, and when the waitress brings it out, he says "Just the glass." The waitress' throat is then slit, and Jessie drains her blood into the glass like it's on tap during happy hour.

The acting is competent and the cinematography is gorgeous (and very similar to that of The Terminator and Aliens). Director Kathryn Bigelow creates a bleak landscape for the film, filling the sky with either blue/green night, purple/red sunset, teal/orange sunrise, or dessicated daylight.

Near Dark is a notable and very well-made horror film that stands the test of time. But guess what, a superflous remake is in the works! I bet it'll be absolutely fantastic!

8/10"