Review by Jason Lees

Why is it that a film as good as NEAR DARK just can’t catch a break, even 24 years after its release?

NEAR DARK is more than just another vampire flick, it’s the ultimate underdog movie. It’s constantly being compared and overshadowed by its competition, but it keeps coming back for more, and the more I see it, the more I fall under its spell.

Before NEAR DARK, vampire movies were mostly of the Dracula variety, rather gothic with a solo bloodsucker looking for equal parts foreplay and food. In 1987, NEAR DARK and a little film called THE LOST BOYS changed all that by introducing to the mainstream audience the idea of a pack of vampires, but more on that later.

Director Kathryn Bigelow along with writer Eric Red crafted a tale straddling the line between horror and western. What they gave us was the story of Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) who thinks he’s met his dream girl in Mae (Jenny Wright). They talk, they kiss, they neck, they share bodily fluids. Well, at least one fluid: his blood. Mae takes a nip from his good ol’ boy neck and now Caleb is experiencing the early stages of vampirism. What’s worse than that, he’s kidnapped by Mae’s family of fellow vamps.

And this is where the real fun begins.

The family is made up of historical misfits. Lance Henricksen (who’s never been as good since) plays Jesse, the leader of the group. He’s a civil war vet who’s still not to happy that they lost the war. Bill Paxton, who at this point in his career hadn’t yet learned what subtlety was, plays Severen, the cowboy of the clan. Jenette Goldstein plays Diamondback, the matriarch with enough reserved menace that it makes up for anything Paxton overplays. Josh Miller has the trickiest role of Homer, the youngest looking vampire who might just be the oldest of the group.

The Caleb sticks close to Mae as the family flee across Texas, avoiding the police and sunlight. What we get is a road picture mixed with a western with enough blood and gore to keep it firmly rooted in the horror genre. What might come off as a little schizophrenic is actually a perfectly balanced ride that only gets better the longer you stay with it.

It’s too bad it didn’t get a chance in ’87. The distributor went broke and didn’t promote it enough, so even in its initial run it wound up looking like either a LOST BOYS clone or TERMINATOR rip off. It never has gotten its due. Even now, over two decades later, it’s still suffering from bad timing and lousy marketing. It finally received a good 2 disc dvd set, but that’s out of print and all you can seem to find is the latest release which has good ol’ Caleb on the cover, front and center. Pristine. Shiny.

Why, I’d even go so far as to say that he sparkles. Grrrrrr…

To cash in on the Twilight craze, the recent release has Adrian Pasdar looking very Edwardian on the case, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe a whole new generation of film-goer will be duped into picking up NEAR DARK thinking they’ll join Team Jesse on a lark. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll learn that vampires are monsters who tear their victims apart, not catch apples with their toes.

Maybe "NEAR DARK" will finally have a happy ending.