NEAR DARK: Ive never been happier to find a thrift store item than a few weeks ago when I found a 2 Disc DVD set of my personal favorite Vampire movie, NEAR DARK. Ever since I first saw nearly a decade ago, this has become one of my favorite horror/rom films ever. And for anyone who’s never seen it, here’s the lowdown. Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) is that down home ol’ country boy who ends up meeting a sweet blonde named Mae (Jenny Wright) late one night. They seems to hit it off at sweet pace, but when she ends up biting him, Caleb becomes the latest reluctant member of a crew of nomadic roughneck vampires, led by Jesse (Lance Henrikson). While most of them want to kill Caleb right off the bat, Mae, still in love with him, pleads for his inclusion. So, Caleb struggles to adapt into the vampiric rebel life, not wanting to kill, but struggling to stay with his girl. Add on his father and little sister searching for him and we have a fast paced suspense leading up to what can only live up to tragedy. In a lot of ways, I’ve often called NEAR DARK the best James Cameron movie that Cameron had nothing to do with. Of course, there’s obvious reference since many cast members from ALIENS show up in this movie. Plus, this was the first fully solo directing project for director/co-writer Kathyrn Bigelow (not only James Cameron’s ex-wife, but also the woman that would go on to win the first Best Director Oscar to a female director). Even one scene involving a 10 wheeler easily echoes scenes from both TERMINATOR movies. With NEAR DARK, in a lot of ways, Bigelow not only literally made the greatest western from the 80s, but one of the best horror movie reinventions ever, mixing a love story along with action, horror, and even black comedy. She also had a great eye for action even back then (although watching HURT LOCKER or ZERO DARK THIRTY years later, there’s nothing that stands out on that level). Bigelow also undercurrents the typical Vampire tropes, apart from the blood drinking and the burning to ashes in sunlight (although in this film, there’s apparently a cure for vampirism, which I thought was a pretty weak cop out, but one easily forgiven). Pasdar actually surprised me with his role in this movie (I had seen him in a show called MYSTERIOUS WAYS, which was like the Christian version of the X-FILES; later would know him for his part in HEROES). He plays a basic character that simply reacts, but at least remains charismatic throughout. Of course, my favorite characters are the members of the “family”: Bill Paxton as Severin is easily the most fun character, playing one of the more underrated bad boy figures, with Henrikson playing his usual awesome stoic figure (also loved a lot of his backstory’s from the Civil War) and Jenette Goldstein as her usual chameleon self (who would really think of her character here, and recall Vasquez from ALIENS or the Irish mother from TITANIC?). Joshua Miller as Homer is somewhat interesting in a twisted way at playing a older man in a boy’s body, and in a way, proves somewhat of a very darkly crude character. Sadly, the weakest cast member is Jenny Wright as Mae. While she’s pretty and her character’s a sweetly driven persona, the character’s very underwritten, even at times being reverted to Damsel in Distress status. Even so, NEAR DARK is a beautifully shot film that blends all kinds of genres very well (most can easily just call it a Horror Western), but it’s truly one of my favorite films. However, the love story in horror films has really been done and buried in the past decade. Hearing about TWILIGHT and knowing its clichés, I just always thought, “Man, I’ve seen this movie before. It was called NEAR DARK and it was far more awesome than this.”
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 01:34:39 +0000
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