Top Movies #24

Near Dark (1987)

“Let's put it this way: I fought for the South. We lost.” – Jesse

As a rule, modern films about vampires are bad. They lack the creepy gothic overtones and a genuine atmosphere of dread that made the early incarnations of nosferatu so menacing. Near Dark is, therefore, an unexpected exception. Co-written and directed by the acclaimed, and often controversial, Kathryn Bigelow; it is a testament to the male dominated forum of filmmaking that one of Hollywood’s most significant female directors can produce a richly layered, challenging film about a clan of social outcasts that masquerades as an action/horror flick. Or perhaps it does so only to compete with its testosterone-fuelled contemporaries. Either way, Bigelow plays with established and iconic American settings and themes to enliven her work.

The film is unabashedly a Western, first and foremost. The focus is on the American Wild Bunch who flee from the law and impose a very real threat to the innocent civilian. The film is set in the American mid-west and is ripe with familiar imagery: spurs, dusters, revolvers, and endless hardened landscapes. At the end of it all, good is once again triumphant over evil, for the world is no longer a safe place for the vampiric outcasts.

It is interesting to mention, however, the word “vampire” is not once used throughout the course of the film. Although the outcasts are clearly defined as such: they drink blood, are immortal, and fry when exposed to the sun. But it is the practical realism (if such a remark can be made under the circumstance) of this clan of misfits dealing with their exorcism from society - while simultaneously feeding upon it - that creates the film’s most interesting discourse. The villains, which they clearly must be as they feed on human blood, at one point torment and murder the terrified patrons of an off-highway bar, only to devolve into a critical state of panic themselves when they must duct-tape the windows of their car, as they struggle to hide from the rising sun, while out-running an angered police force.

And then there’s the main character, Caleb, who gets a taste of the vampire life when he is bitten and kidnapped by the clan. He enjoys the rush, but refuses to partake in the bloodletting of innocents and so is exercised from the clan, all the while being pursued by his determined father and younger sister.

At its heart, Near Dark is a story about the strength of family. When Caleb is away from his, he is susceptible, and is taken in by the vampire family, which consists of a father and mother figure, along with adopted children. Caleb, however, does not belong, and only his true family can rescue and, ironically, cure him of the vampiric malady. Only now, with the strength of his family, can Caleb stand up to the formidable strength of his immortal captures, thereby ridding the world of an ancient and long forgotten family which, much like the Wild Bunch, simply has no safe place to settle in the modern world.