Near Dark (1987)
Kathryn Bigelow's classic film shirks all the usual vampiric Gothic trappings and takes on the look of depression era dust bowls with it's starkly bleak Americana landscape - think The Last Picture Show - as the film combines the western and horror genres in one visually stunning and frightening package.
The film is a tense road movie in which a farm boy, Adrian Pasdar, is inducted by sweet Jenny Wright into her nomadic family of terrifying bloodsuckers as they manage to keep one step ahead of both daylight and the law. Bigelow spins a genuinely scary and powerful yarn which both slickly and brutally examines the life of the outlaw gang. Lance Henrikson and Bill Paxton give standout performances as fascinatingly grotesque vampires of the down and dirty rock n' roll variety - we're talking Motorhead and TSOL here rather than surfer dudes hoping for good times tonight.
The film has many standout sequences, but it's highlight is the trashing of a roadside bar as the vampiric gangsters kill everyone inside in a shockingly taut set piece of nightmarish suspense. There's also the familiar whiff of Interview with the Vampire here - the 1976 book not the film - as at times Bigelow plays it out as a parable of innocence exposed to evil especially the many scenes where Pasdar refuses to take another humans life in order to feast and become strong as well as the child vampire unable to grow up.
The 80's were a decade which unleashed some outstanding horror films. Near Dark is one of them.
|