Near Dark

A romance, a western, and a totem to lost youth in an era ravaged by infection and addiction, it’s a high-water mark in a decade filled with exemplary genre fare. Borrowing from, and surpassing, the exceptional chemistry of Aliens’s tightly knit cast, the melancholic Near Dark is gorgeous even in its savagery, and one of pulp cinema’s greatest achievements. Read full review

A smart, creepy, violent, funny, and modern vampire movie that benefits from some wonderful performances, a stunning visual texture, and music by Tangerine Dream. Read full review

Western iconography, noir-ish lighting, and visceral horror are fused with an affecting love story in this stylish 'Vampire Western', which (unlike Bigelow's rather static debut feature The Loveless) is driven forward at a scorching pace, a subtle study in the seductiveness of evil and a terrifying ride to the edge of darkness. Read full review

If you enjoy good horror or vampire flicks, Near Dark is one of the best. Read full review

One regrets the pounding Muzak of Tangerine Dream, but this is on the whole a striking directorial debut, at once scary and erotic, with lots of sidelong touches in the casting, direction, and script . Read full review

Near Dark boasts one of the horror genre’s most unique milieus. Read full review

Bigelow's is a synthetic talent, in the good sense of the word: She draws together a rich, imaginative range of cultural references (the film noir, the Western, the horror movie, the love story) and narrative styles (the lyrical, the expressionist, the action-based, the psychological), making something new out of the traces of the old. [2 Oct 1987, p.A]

There are no gothic extravagances in Kathryn Bigelow's bone-dry, style-rich, noir-steeped vampire western. Instead it comprises a fascinatingly modern take on blood sucking mythology, shedding tradition to examine the creatures as human counterparts. Read full review

Bigelow gets a scary poetry out of these landscapes--and though the film is erratic, it has force and passion...It works on your nerves--not necessarily through its big shock scenes, but through the atmosphere it creates: the sense of dread, no exit, lives plunging out of control, the secret mad pull of murder and outlawry. Read full review

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. Read full review

Bigelow, who codirected THE LOVELESS with Monty Montgomery in 1982, and coscreenwriter Eric Red (THE HITCHER) demonstrate a keen understanding of the history of American cinema and create a unique film that explores the conventions of the vampire movie while moving it from dank European castles to modern-day Southwestern America. Read full review

Bigelow's artful handling of the magic & menace of the night is hauntingly apparent.

Near Dark never drags. When it is funny, it can be wonderfully dark, and when it's scary it is wonderfully mean. Bigelow has a rough-trade sensibility that shows through just often enough. None of the romance of the vampire legend for her and Red; just blood and guts and weird trouble from that odd family down the road. The ensemble cast (three of whom, Henriksen, Paxton and Goldstein are veterans of Aliens) treats it all like red-blooded fun, the effects are swell, and Bigelow is just mean enough to bear watching. [9 Oct 1987, p.D1]

It has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else -- something that comes close to genuine emotion. Read full review

This modern-day vampire movie is, to be sure, no masterpiece, but its suggestive narrative and dreamlike visual style are distinct improvements over those of such recent living-dead flicks as The Lost Boys and Vamp. And if Near Dark doesn't provide a complete answer to the ''necking'' question it raises, well, heck, it's an exploitation film, not an advice column. Read full review

Near Dark has filmmaking finesse to spare, but puts its dank characters on display rather than cadging sympathy for them. It is the Blue Velvet of date-night spook shows. Read full review

You might call this the scattershot school of film making... The result of being pushed and pulled through the confusing styles of Near Dark is simple exhaustion. Read full review

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow with lots of dull spots, a few effectively intense moments, and as much gore as the monster genre usually calls for nowadays. Read full review