Near Dark

    Near Dark
    1987

    Synopsis

    A farm boy reluctantly becomes a member of the undead when a girl he meets turns out to be part of a band of vampires who roam the highways in stolen cars.

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    Cast

    • Adrian PasdarCaleb Colton
    • Jenny WrightMae
    • Lance HenriksenJesse Hooker
    • Bill PaxtonSeveren
    • Jenette GoldsteinDiamondback
    • Tim ThomersonLoy Colton
    • Joshua John MillerHomer
    • Marcie LeedsSarah Colton
    • James Le GrosTeenage Cowboy
    • Troy EvansPlainclothes Officer

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Slant Magazine

      A romance, a western, and a totem to lost youth in an era ravaged by infection and addiction, it’s a high-water mark in a decade filled with exemplary genre fare. Borrowing from, and surpassing, the exceptional chemistry of Aliens’s tightly knit cast, the melancholic Near Dark is gorgeous even in its savagery, and one of pulp cinema’s greatest achievements.
    • 90

      Time Out

      Western iconography, noir-ish lighting, and visceral horror are fused with an affecting love story in this stylish 'Vampire Western', which (unlike Bigelow's rather static debut feature The Loveless) is driven forward at a scorching pace, a subtle study in the seductiveness of evil and a terrifying ride to the edge of darkness.
    • 90

      IGN

      If you enjoy good horror or vampire flicks, Near Dark is one of the best.
    • 90

      Chicago Reader

      One regrets the pounding Muzak of Tangerine Dream, but this is on the whole a striking directorial debut, at once scary and erotic, with lots of sidelong touches in the casting, direction, and script .
    • 80

      Empire

      There are no gothic extravagances in Kathryn Bigelow's bone-dry, style-rich, noir-steeped vampire western. Instead it comprises a fascinatingly modern take on blood sucking mythology, shedding tradition to examine the creatures as human counterparts.
    • 80

      Los Angeles Times

      Bigelow gets a scary poetry out of these landscapes--and though the film is erratic, it has force and passion...It works on your nerves--not necessarily through its big shock scenes, but through the atmosphere it creates: the sense of dread, no exit, lives plunging out of control, the secret mad pull of murder and outlawry.
    • 75

      TV Guide Magazine

      Bigelow, who codirected THE LOVELESS with Monty Montgomery in 1982, and coscreenwriter Eric Red (THE HITCHER) demonstrate a keen understanding of the history of American cinema and create a unique film that explores the conventions of the vampire movie while moving it from dank European castles to modern-day Southwestern America.
    • 70

      Washington Post

      It has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else -- something that comes close to genuine emotion.

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