Thursday, October 29, 2015

Fun Sized Movie Treats (Part 29)



Part two of the final four!
Tomorrow, the last two!


Near Dark (1987)


There ya go, Billdude, I finally threw this one in for ya. ;-)

Like I said at the end of the last one, I should have put this into Dracula-thon.
Specifically, part 10.
BUT, I was so overwhelmed with all the other stuff, and I didn't feel confident to comment on this, cuz I hadn't seen it, then other shit kept making me forget, and well...finally saw it this summer.

I think a deep subliminal part of me knew the summer binge was in preparation for this Halloween.
My subliminal mind is a fucking genius.
Wish it communicated more often.

Anyway, to put it in timeline sequence, first came "Fright Night", then a year later came "Vamp", then a year later came this, and "Lost Boys", at about the same time.

This was the better movie, but "Lost Boys", got all the hype, and MTV play of its soundtrack single.
So, "Lost Boys", won the box-office battle.

This still has a big cult behind it though.

Lance Henriksen in multiple podcast interviews says this is one of his favorite movies he ever did.
Quite possibly his favorite.
He loved the character, he loved the story, and he had the biggest blast making it.
If you ever interview him, just bring up "Near Dark", and get out the popcorn.

At a basic skeleton level, it's kind of "Fright Night 2", on the road, and filmed Wild West style.

A girl vampire infects the protagonist, and he's pulled into their little family tribe, and they go from town to town as these wandering gypsies finding victims while the hero struggles not to lose his soul (for lack of a better descriptor).

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who'd go on to do "Point Break", "Strange Days", "The Hurt Locker", and "Zero Dark Thirty".

I love the look, feel, and tone of it.
I dig Lance's character, I dig young Bill Paxton being all Bill Paxton-y, I like certain scenes, like the bar scene.
...but it kinda gets stupid in the third act.
I think the studio wanted their "good guys win", ending, so something was pulled out of a writer's ass.

I think that held it back from perfection, and beating "Lost Boys", more than anything.
I won't give it away, just watch it, and decide for yourself.

Thing is....I don't know how else you could have ended it.
I think it needed no ending.
It needs to be a TV series that goes on forever like "Supernatural", has.

It definitely needs to be in your vampire collection if you have such a thing.
If you do, you probably already have this, but it couldn't hurt for me to give it a shout out anyway.

Definitely yet another antidote to "Twilight".

So...yep, that's that one.


Next up, gene splicing, and body swapping.

3 comments:

B. Dee said...

I thought "Near Dark" was okay the first time I saw it but not the second, the second time I found myself really kind of disliking it.
Yes, the third act is a big problem.
The actors seem game, especially Henriksen (the detail about him being a Confederate soldier--"we lost"--has stuck in my mind) but Bigelow wrote most of the movie herself IIRC and she's not really a screenwriter.
She's a good director, and did establish a good tone for this movie, and it's cool that it's another "don't call it a vampire movie" vampire movie, but stuff like Bill Paxton trying to act like a badass really grates in this movie. Yeah, that's right, not a fan of Paxton in this one.
Jenny Wright isn't used that well either (I'll never forget her as the groupie from the movie of Pink Floyd's "The Wall," now THERE'S a great scene!) and Jeanette Goldstein seems to fade into the background.

And that ending bites, pun intended.

There's a distinct possiblity I'd actually take "The Lost Boys" over this, and I don't recall ever being much of a TLB fan.

Don't forget Joshua John Miller (the little kid vampire) is the son of Jason Miller of "Exorcist" fame and wrote that "Final Girls" movie for you. Well I already mentioned that...

Of course, it's gotta be better than "Twilight," but the only things that probably aren't better than "Twilight" would be "What The Bleep Do We Know," "Mars Attacks," "The Boondock Saints," "Hesher," and a few other zero-star turds I could name.

Diacanu said...



Well, "Lost Boys", definitely has a better third act, so...yeah.
All right then.


Diacanu said...



By "All right then", I mean I gladly concede the point.
Thought that came across as huffy.

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