Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Movie review – “Near Dark” (1987)**1/2

Kathryn Bigelow’s first feature as sole director has style and atmosphere to spare, as well as a decent set up - a bunch of vampires roam the modern-day American west, and a lonely female member of the group drafts a slightly sleazy, cocky human into their midst. Aliens fans will love the fact that three of the vampires are played by Bill Paxton (bringing much-needed humour to the film), Lance Henrickson and that chick who played Vasquez. You are likely to remember the short fat kid. Adrian Pasdar, the human who gets involved, is a charismatic likeable guy – it’s a wonder he didn’t have a bigger career. Jenny Wright is very pretty as his girlfriend. On the downside, the story is a bit of a mess and frequently makes no sense – they won’t let Pasdar go, then they do, then they don’t… he gets them in trouble – but then they don’t… and the sun is always about to go up. Also there's a lot of powerful emotional stuff (relationships among the vampires) that is really skimmed over. It looks fantastic - late nights, fluro lights, deserted streets and countryside, pounding Tangerine Dream score. There's a great scene where the vampires take over a bar and very skillful use of sun as an enemy for the vampires.

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