Despite being praised by critics Near Dark was a box office failure when it was first released in theaters in 1987. Near Dark is one of many vampire films that were released during the 1980’s. However, unlike the majority of eighties vampire flicks that have come and gone, Near Dark found its success when it developed a cult following on video and has since been one of the many vampires films that new horror fans have been discovering for the first time on DVD. Now the film is being presented for the first time on Blu-ray disc and I am sure a completely new audience will soon rediscover this great vampire film all over again.
Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar), a young man in a small Oklahoma town, meets Mae (Jenny Wright), an attractive young drifter. Just before sunrise, she bites him on the neck then runs off. When the sun rises Caleb’s flesh begins to burn, however Mae and her group of friends come by and rescue him in time before he is burned to death by the rising sun. Caleb soon finds out that he has been turned into a vampire, and many of Mae’s friends want to kill him, especially the crazy vampire Severen (Bill Paxton). However the leader of the pack, Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen) agrees to keep Caleb alive for a week and let him run with the pack to see how well he will do. Yet, Caleb refuse to kill people for their blood and begins to rebel against the clan. Mae follows his lead as the two fall for one another, and figure out a way to battle for their love and fight to live another night.
The first time I saw Near Dark was about five years ago. I remember seeing the film on video store shelves as a kid, but my friend and I never bothered to rent a film that did not have some kind of screwed up looking monster on its cover. It was though word of mouth and praise of many on the internet that I actually decided to pick this one up on DVD and check it out. Well, I was sold. Near Dark is one great vampire film, with a great storyline and some shocking scenes.
Near Dark is a story that I found to be well written and full of great character development. Each character in the film has their own distinct features and traits about them that make them unique. Severen was one of those characters that I will always remember as one of the better vampires in the genre’s history. It is one of Bill Paxton’s best performances. The whole cast of vampires were great, Lance Henricksen and Jenette Goldstein gave great performances as did the films two lead actors Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright. Because Paxton, Henricksen and Goldstein had previously been in Aliens together, many have said that they all had good chemistry with one another and that’s the reason for the good performances. It could be, but I think the casting of all three, weather coincidence or not was the right decision.
The Blu-ray disc comes with many of the features that the DVD version did. The film does look good in its Widescreen 1080p HD transfer and the audio is in English 5.1 DTS-HD and English 2.0 PCM Audio. English and Spanish subtitles are available on the disc as well as English SDH for the deaf and hard of hearing. The features on the disc include Audio Commentary with Director Kathryn Bigelow as well as deleted scenes with commentary by Kathryn Bigelow as well. There is also the “Living in Darkness” “Making of” featurette and the films theatrical trailers.
Overall Near Dark is probably the best vampire film you didn’t see. It is to fans of eighties vampire flicks, what Twilight is to the youth of today. Think of it as film that might have had a tint of inspiration on Twilight as this is a vampire love story. Fans who loved this film, I think will be very happy with the Blu-ray disc and it is a film well worth checking out if you have never seen it before. I highly recommend it.
– Horror Bob
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