July 3
Near Dark (1987)D: Kathryn Bigelow; Scr: Eric Red, Kathryn Bigelow; with Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, Tim Thomerson. (R, 95 min.)
Near Dark is the third film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, although the first one to gain wide attention. It’s a smart, creepy, violent, funny, and modern vampire movie that benefits from some wonderful performances, a stunning visual texture, and music by Tangerine Dream. Near Dark established Bigelow as the creator of stylish, inventive work that looked great and imbued the old formula with new life. The reviewer for Variety noted, however, that the movie’s “main point of interest will be the work of Bigelow, who has undoubtedly created the most hard-edged, violent actioner ever directed by an American woman.” A dubious distinction, perhaps, but one that has followed Bigelow throughout her career. She has continued to work within genre formulas and has established herself as the foremost woman director of action movies. Subsequent films include the police drama Blue Steel, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, the undercover FBI/surfer/bank robber movie Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, the science-fiction of Wild Palms and Strange Days, the unreleased romantic thriller The Weight of Water starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, and Catherine McCormack, and the upcoming K-19: The Widowmaker, a reportedly $60 million submarine actioner starring Harrison Ford. Near Dark focuses on an itinerant vampire clan whose family security is upset when a newcomer enters their group. Adrian Pasdar plays an Oklahoma farmboy who gets more than he bargained for when he hassles the new girl in town for a kiss. The story, written by Bigelow and horror specialist Eric Red (Body Parts), locates the luridly erotic undertones that are intrinsic to the vampire myth and successfully obscures the comfortable lines separating normal from abnormal. Familial loyalty and love between a man and a woman are the dominant motifs that underscore all the movie’s bloody mayhem. The film was also something of a homecoming that reunited three of the cast members from Aliens: Bill Paxton (in an all-out mad performance), Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein. Bigelow’s picture of the darkness residing in the American heartland still resonates today.
This article appears in May 18 • 2001.
