Near Dark (1987)

Small-town cowboy-wannabe Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) picks up pixie-girl Mae (Jenny Wright) sometime late in the evening (it’s hard to say when as time doesn’t work in this film). That’s a problem as she’s a vampire (the “V” word is never used) who converts him. He’s now stuck with her vampire family: angry man in a kid’s body Homer (Joshua Miller), the couple Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen) and Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), and psychopath Severen (Bill Paxton). To live, Caleb needs to kill, and the band gives him a week to start acting like them or they will destroy him. Meanwhile, Calab’s father (Tim Thomerson) and little sister (Marcie Leeds) are on the road trying to find him.

This was it, the one that got away. I’ve seen every iconic vampire film as early in life as possible. For most, that means when they were released, and for those that came out before I was born, I caught up in the 1970s. But Near Dark was the one I missed. I can’t say why I didn’t watch it as those 30 years ticked by, but I never did. So it was with some excitement that I sat down to fill in this gaping hole in my cinematic vampire knowledge, and it was without that excitement that I now sit down to write about it.

There’s just not much to it. It’s fine, but I’d have been better off going in with lower expectations. Much lower. There’s no story here. They travel a bit, talk a lot, murder a little, and then Caleb escapes and we’re at a big climax that makes no sense. It even dodges any ethical dilemmas, so don’t go looking for theme. For a low-budget, no-big-deal horror film, it’s OK, but it doesn’t earn its status.

What Near Dark does have going for it is the cast, specifically Paxton and Henriksen. They are a lot of fun, and the reason to watch. They are creepy and funny and I’m sure are responsible for most of the good reviews. Director Kathryn Bigelow was married to James Cameron at the time of filming and managed to pull over main cast members from Aliens. Michael Biehn was offered the lead but turned it down due to the poor script; well, he knows his scripts, but it was unfortunate as Pasdar doesn’t have the charisma to stand even with his cast-mates.

But apart from the cast, there’s little here and a whole lot of distracting stupidity. None of these vampires would have lasted a month, much less a century, with their complete disregard for time. With sunlight the only thing they fear, I’d think they’d try not to get caught out at dawn, like they do over and over. But then it seems night doesn’t last more than an hour or so. Mae goes out for ice cream, so the parlor has to still be open. 8pm? 10pm? Whatever the time, they drive off for what seems like 10 minutes, but could have been an hour, and then it’s dawn. Sunrise is before midnight. Huh. They terrorize a bar. 10pm? 1am? Whatever the time, they leave and five minutes later dawn is coming. Sunrise is a flexible concept in this film.

Then there’s Caleb, who is an idiot. Hey, if you get away from some exceptionally violent vampires who care about being unknown, do you think just going home and hanging out with your father and sister and doing nothing about the vampires is a good plan? They know where he lives. But then the vampires seem to have no better plan than he does, once again, forgetting about dawn.

A few good actors aren’t enough. You need a script, and Near Dark doesn’t have one. I expected more.