Near Dark is often remembered as the other vampire movie of 1987 and due to the financial difficulties of the film's studio, it did not receive the same level of publicity as the other film of that year, The Lost Boys. But as the years passed, the film found new life on home video and slowly grew to become the highly regarded cult classic it is today, as well as being the superior vampire flick of that year.
Caleb (played by Adrian Pasdar) is having a nice evening on the town in small town Oklahoma when he crosses paths with a beautiful young drifter named Mae (played by Jenny Wright). They spend the night together and as night comes to a close, she bites him on the neck and runs off. Walking home as the sun rises, Caleb's skin begins to smoke and burn as he grows weaker. As he get close to home, he is abducted by the occupants of an R.V. Inside, Caleb is introduced to Severen (played by Bill Paxton) as well as Jesse (played by Lance Henrickson), Razorback (played by Jeanette Goldstein) and Homer (played by Joshua Miller). Along with Mae, this roaming gang of vampires travel the countryside from town to town. At Mae's insistance, they reluctantly agree to allow Caleb to join the group, provided he can learn to hunt and earn the group's trust. Meanwhile, Caleb's father, Loy (played by Tim Thomerson), and sister Sarah (played by Marcie Leeds) witnessed Caleb's abduction and after getting nowhere with the police begin searching for him on their own.
The film was born out the desire for director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Eric Red wanting to make a Western. However, knowing that Westerns weren't in vogue at the moment decided to meld it with another genre, the horror genre. They came up and intriguing storyline and some equally great actors to populate it. Dominating the film is the group of vampires at the center of the tale. We have Jesse and Razorback as the leaders of the group with wild child Severen, the only one of the group who seems to enjoy being a vampire, and the eternally youthful Homer, an old man forever trapped in the body of an adolescent. These characters are really well drawn and yet their backstory is only ever hinted at. We get a sense of how far at least Jesse goes when he admits he fought in the Civil War. Apparently Severen isn't much younger since he brags at one point about him and Jesse being responsible for the Great Chicago Fire. It is through their interactions that you get the sense that they've been together for a very long time in small moments such as Severen bristling at Homer once again bemoaning being forever a kid. And yet, despite how intriguing, interesting and in the case of Severen charismatic they are, they are also brutal killers, as demonstrated in the film's best known sequence where the vampire crew invade a small town bar and in short order manage to slaughter the patrons inside. The film is wonderfully directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who would go onto bigger films such as Point Break, Stranger Days, and eventually win an Oscar for The Hurt Locker. It was her first movie as a director and she does a sublime job with how she presents the story and stages the film's action sequences.
When it came time to cast the film, Bigelow swiped three actors from friend James Cameron's film Aliens (that film even turns up on a theatre marquee in the background during one scene), Lance Henrickson, Jeanette Goldstein and Bill Paxton. While all three are great in their roles, it's Bill Paxton that dominates the film from the moment he first comes on screen. Wild, unhinged, and funny, it's hard not to like Severen even when you know you shouldn't because if given the opportunity, he'd just as easily slit your throat with his spur and drink you dry. Joshua Miller does a great job with his role as Homer as well, tapping into his character's angst and feelings of isolation from the rest of the group due to appearing so much younger than everyone else in the group. That's the interesting thing about this film in that I found the vampire gang so much more intriguing and interesting than the more heroic characters, such as Caleb and his family and Mae, who is every bit a reluctant bloodsucker as the recently turned Caleb. That's the one fault of the film, I suppose is that Jesse and his gang were such a colorful bunch, I wanted to know more about them and were more intrigued by them than Caleb and Mae.
Near Dark remains a superior scary movie that even thirty years later still holds up as one of the more interesting and unique takes on vampire mythology. If vampires existed, it's how I imagine their life might actually be like in this day and age. Forever on the move and existing on the fringes of society. If nothing else, it's worth watching for the recently departed Bill Paxton alone in one of his best roles.
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