Near Dark (1987)

In Kathryn Bigelow's tale of vampires in the American Southwest, the creatures of the night aren't elegant, cloaked aristocrats. They're a gun-toting gang that dresses and acts like a motorcycle gang. Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a restless young man from a small farm town, meets an alluring drifter named Mae (Jenny Wright). She reveals herself to be a vampire, who "turns" Caleb into one of her kind rather than kill him. But the rest of her "family" is slow to accept the newcomer. The ancient leader, Jesse (Lance Henriksen), and his psychotic henchman Severen (Bill Paxton) lay down the law; Caleb has to carry his own weight or die. However, he can't bring himself to kill. He manages to win the gang's approval when he rescues them from certain death in a daytime gunfight during a spectacular motel shoot-out in which every bullet hole lets in a deadly ray of sunlight. When the vampires threaten Caleb's real family, he's forced to choose between life and death. The film avoids the complex vampire mythology of such films as Interview with the Vampire. Instead, it emphasizes the intense, seductive bond that forms between Caleb and the violent but tightly knit gang. Bigelow would later utilize this powerful dramatic device in her 1991 film Point Break.

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Review By Lucia Bozzola

Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987) crosses the Western with the horror film in one of the most intriguing and smartly scripted films in the vampire subgenre (although the "v" word is never spoken). While the velvety shadows and expressive lighting effects enhance the eeriness of the undead drifters' night world, Bigelow's keen visual sensibility is also displayed in her stylish Western landscapes; the romance between Caleb and Mae may be gothic, but it's Southern-Western Gothic. In this hybrid atmosphere, the complex relationships among the vampire "family" shift sympathies away from the usual human "heroes," even as the deliberately paced story is shot through with violently frightening and blackly humorous scenes of vampire mayhem. The charismatic crew's hedonistic world has its seductions, even if former human Caleb cannot adopt the lifestyle. As vampire initiate Caleb becomes increasingly strung-out from avoiding blood, and the specter of blood exchange invokes death, Near Dark becomes a timely allegory of disease and drug addiction as well as a tale about broken families and Western isolation. Though not a hit in 1987, Near Dark has become a cult favorite and one of the most highly regarded films in Bigelow's genre-twisting oeuvre.