by: KFear
Posted on 03.27.10 in All Horror Films > Vampire
Release Date: 1987

Horror films from the decade of big hair, bright clothing, and boom boxes, generally reflected pop culture to a T.  The 80’s pop culture films simply pinpointed what it truly meant to be a young adult in such socially demanding environments.  The Breakfast Club wasn’t the only classic to help mold the generation, as there were also an abundance of horror films that came out during that wondrous decade of glitter, sheen, and John Hughes.

Enter Near Dark.  It’s a tale of family, young love, and dusty street dwelling vampires.  The creatures of the night have invaded many sleepy towns in order to dine on human blood, and while they travel from town to town for what is implied to be 100’s of years, they become closer and develop their own type of family values.  Heck, even though they are all well over a humans life expectancy, they still manage to have a father figure (Lance Henriksen), a mother (Jenette Goldstein), an older brother (Bill Paxton) and a innocent young daughter who is played by Jenny Wright.  The values are not of a typical family, because they are vampires after all, but the interactions between the members are sometimes comical do to the fact that these people are not blood related but still act as the closest of family members.  Funny, what brings them together is not their biological blood relations, but for their thirst for blood itself.

Caleb, played by Adrian Pasdar, is a young man who likes to travel about his dusty country roads in order to escape the quiet life on his family farm.  One night, Caleb runs across the lovely Mae, a seemingly innocent girl who unwillingly starts to tickle the fancy of Caleb’s affection.  What he doesn’t realize is that Mae is a blood thirsty vampire and that she is not looking for a “good time” more than she is looking for what easy prey the night may bring her.  Well, Mae seems to take to Caleb’s charm and doesn’t kill him, but instead, turns Caleb into a vampire by only biting his neck, not sucking his veins dry, which would surely lead to a foreseeable death.  Throughout much of the film, Caleb is committed to join the family of vampires.  The struggle lies within his ability to adapt to such a lifestyle.

Near Dark is constantly pulling you from one family to the other.  During the middle acts of the film, Caleb’s family is also looking for him as their son has been missing for more than just a couple of nights.  This means that the group of vampires are dealing with a new member, and Caleb’s family is dealing with the search (and possible death) of their only son.  The family values of both parties are constantly examined and compared until the gap between a vampires socialistic idealizations are almost one and the same with a humans.  Sure, there are huge differences, but what makes Near Dark such a fantastic film is that it creates these themes so well, and without compromising a progressing story that is a ton of fun to sit through.

Near Dark doesn’t come with a lot of gore or bloodshed, but it’s a rarity that vampire films aren’t as elegant and discrete as the creatures of whom they examine.   There is a rather entertaining scene, thanks to Bill Paxton’s wonder performance, that is violent but there is not a segment in the film that will make you wince do to its graphic content.  This is the 80’s after all.  Be prepared to have fun with Near Dark besides being horrified by any of its bloody sequences.

Near Dark is as great as 80’s horror gets: the characters, the story, and the script are all, with a lack of better terms, wonderful and fulfilling.  It should sit right next to your copies of Fright Night, Demons, Nightmare on Elm Street, Stage Fright, and…man…the list goes on.

Let’s face it…it all happened in the mid-80’s.

Get this film!

• ★★★★★

  Acting:

• ★★★★★

  Blood:

• ★★★★★

  Violence:

• ★★★★★

  Partying:

• ★★★★★

  Language:

• ★★★★★

  Humor:

• ★★★★★

  Predictable:

• ★★★★★

  Girls:

• ★★★★★

  Gore:

• ★★★★★

  Sexuality:

• ★★★★★

  Torture:

• ★★★★★

  Overall:

I love, love, love this movie--great review!