No. 12: NEAR DARK
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
AS THIS IS PART OF A RETRO NOSTALGIA BINGE AS OPPOSED TO A TRADITIONAL REVIEW, THERE MAY BE SPOILERS PRESENT IN THE TEXT.
If you aren't tired by now of hearing about my old heavy metal band, I should probably refrain from telling you that The Lost Boys, which was later renamed Less Than Zero, was finally called Near Dark for the rest of its existence. We could never decide if we wanted to name our band after Vampire flicks or Jami Gertz movies, I suppose.
Neardark was a film that I knew about for quite some time before finally catching it on cable. Siskel and Ebert had covered it on one episode, and they quite often referred to the notorious 'bar scene' within the film. The vampires-as-junkies theme has been explored a few times (Abel Ferrara's The Addiction being one example that leaps to mind), but Neardark was the first time I had seen it explored with such literalness. Director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days) directed this very cool script by Aliens helmer James Cameron in which a young cowboy named Caleb (Adrian Pasdar, now of Heroes fame on TV) gets mixed up with a roving gang of vampire ne'er do wells.
Shot primarily at night in run down Southwest towns, the film has a certain level of verisimilitude. It really feels like a gritty expose of small-town heroin use, except with vampires. Innocent good ol' boy Caleb runs into Mae (Jenny Wright), a young blond siren who has been newly recruited into her bloodsucking family, and is therefore expected to make her first kill. In an odd casting coup, Aliens castmates Lance Henrikson, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein are reunited as fellow vampires, the former being their civil-war era leader Jesse Hooker. Paxton plays an obnoxious yahoo named Severen and Jenette plays Diamondback, the den mother to this dysfunctional group. The pack is rounded out by Joshua Miller's Homer, who is an aged immortal trapped in the body of a prepubescent boy, much to his chagrin. This theme has been explored in the works of Anne Rice, but once again this was the first time I had seen it. His scenes are hilarious, and Miller does a great job enacting the mannerisms of a horny, cocky adult.
The vampires have through trial and error meticulously engineered their undead lifestyle. They cruise around in a sunlight-proof Winnebago, and move from town to town before drawing too much attention to themselves. It's a very unglamorous affair, and the vampire template helps convey the 'surviving but not living' nature of a heroin user.
The group originally intends for Caleb to be Mae's first snack, but unfortunately she is drawn to his naiveté, and can't kill him. Soon Caleb is a floundering vampire youngster, and the rest of the gang reluctantly allows him to join their fold. This leads to the aforementioned bar scene, which begins almost as a music video, with the John Parr tune Naughty Naughty blaring from the establishment's stereo. Henriksen and crew make themselves at home, intimidating the waitress, bartender and clientele. Despite the fact that you know what's about to happen, when the eventual bloodbath ensues the viewer is never quite ready for it. The ultimate moment is when Paxton's character uses his heel spurs to slice a victim's throat, and then holds a beer mug under the draining wound. 'Finger lickin' good!' he exclaims as he savors every drop.
Pasdar as Caleb does a great job at displaying his desire for Mae's love and his uneasiness at this new existence. He's not a loner, as his father (Straight-to-video favorite Tim Thomerson again!) and sister soon realize that he's in trouble and set out to find him. When vampires and family meet at a local motel, you know things aren't going to end well. Another famous scene occurs where the holed-up creatures of the night do battle with local law enforcement during a bright morning, and are burned by the pinholes of light created by the ever-growing amount of bullet holes.
Neardark is a very sobering alternative to the world of The Lost Boys, and when a final showdown occurs it's not a very joyful event. The style of this film has been aped since its release, but it was a truly original beast when it arrived in 1987. A few years ago, Anchor Bay was able to give it a great double DVD release (with a very cool foil digipak foldout case) with commentary tracks and an insightful retrospective. So now before you go check out Feast or watch From Dusk Till Dawn again, check out the originator and see if you don't dig it as much as I did.