Synopsis: Teenage vampire romance
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Actors: Jeanette Goldstein, Lance Hendriksen, William Paxton, Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright
Date: 1987
How viewed: Lovefilm
Rating: 3/5
David Meyer says:
This is an astounding, subversive treatment of a classic theme: love between a vampire and a mortal, set for maximum weirdness in the modern rural wasteland of a Western suburbia.
I say:
I'm not a particular fan of vampire movies (except perhaps the old Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee ones), and Near Dark failed to hold my attention, until 2 set-pieces around the middle of the film (in the bar, and the shoot out at the motel) and then it just flagged again until a scene near the end. Of course the storyline doesn't really hold together (it's about vampires after all!!), so that while I can accept that they only survive by drinking blood, their immortality, and that they can't go out in the sunshine, I don't understand where their superhuman strength comes from, or why no one seems to have noticed that a number of normal folk are being killed each night and drained of blood (oh, and can you reverse vampirism with a blood transfusion??). The film felt strangely un-menacing (the Tangerine Dream soundtrack didn't help) and it's so annoying when the story requires ridiculous coincidences. However, in addition to the aforementioned set-pieces I did like the fact that the vampires actually did burn up when exposed to the sun, shots of various cars and vans speeding across the Kansas/Oklahoma scenery, and there were a few arresting images (like the one shown above) - otherwise nothing much to write home about.
This is an astounding, subversive treatment of a classic theme: love between a vampire and a mortal, set for maximum weirdness in the modern rural wasteland of a Western suburbia.
I say:
I'm not a particular fan of vampire movies (except perhaps the old Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee ones), and Near Dark failed to hold my attention, until 2 set-pieces around the middle of the film (in the bar, and the shoot out at the motel) and then it just flagged again until a scene near the end. Of course the storyline doesn't really hold together (it's about vampires after all!!), so that while I can accept that they only survive by drinking blood, their immortality, and that they can't go out in the sunshine, I don't understand where their superhuman strength comes from, or why no one seems to have noticed that a number of normal folk are being killed each night and drained of blood (oh, and can you reverse vampirism with a blood transfusion??). The film felt strangely un-menacing (the Tangerine Dream soundtrack didn't help) and it's so annoying when the story requires ridiculous coincidences. However, in addition to the aforementioned set-pieces I did like the fact that the vampires actually did burn up when exposed to the sun, shots of various cars and vans speeding across the Kansas/Oklahoma scenery, and there were a few arresting images (like the one shown above) - otherwise nothing much to write home about.
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