Near Dark

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow twenty years before her big success recently with The Hurt Locker, you’d find it very hard to see any similarities. This is a dark, fairly brutal vampire film from the late 80s, rejecting the comedy or light-hearted, mainstream nature of thrillers that had gone before it (like Fright Night or The Lost Boys). In fact, the word ‘vampire’ is never mentioned – hinting almost at an embarrassment, or an attempt to dissociate itself from other movies. A young man in an American Midwest town meets a girl and offers her a ride home. When he leans in for a kiss, she bites his neck.  Both actors are unknown, and you think at first they won’t last much further than the first act, but they are in fact to be our main characters. As the man begins to turn into a vampire, he is picked up by the girl and her sinister gang (including a very creepy kid who has stayed young despite being very old). As with most vampire literature, the vampires here represent the dangerous underside of society – here a biker gang of punks/rebels. This is highlighted when a policeman interrogates the young man about what drugs he’s taken, or by his father’s concern that he’s dropped in with the ‘wrong crowd’. Likewise, as with a lot of vampire movies, time seems to advance very quickly (either during the day so it can be night, or during the night so it can be dawn). This is generally due to poor script-writing, but in a certain sense just can’t be avoided. The scene in the bar is exceptionally brutal, especially the shocking moment where the reason for the spurs becomes evident. It is undoubtedly Bill Paxton who steals the show throughout. There is also great music by Tangerine Dream, which is much emulated. Unlike most other vampire movies, however, there is a cure – although this is never explained or fully justified. As you can guess this film has a huge cult following (and deservedly so), and is worth watching now to catch up on the history of Bigelow (note the cinema showing Aliens in the background of one shot), especially as her next film about Bin Laden seems set to make a lot of headlines.