Near Dark - Kathryn Bigelow
This is the most authentic and original vampire film I have ever seen. While you immediately think that this is a vampire film you keep waiting for the expected story beats to happen and they never do.
The story opens with the tried and tested – human lured into darkness by lust for one of the vampires. But that is where the familiarity ends.
Caleb is a cowboy somewhere in rural America who tries his luck on the wrong girl who turns him into a vampire. We immediately expect the next steps to be inculcation into this world’s vampire mythos.
But that doesn’t happen. We are even left guessing that Mae is a vampire. We are only given clues – animals are frightened of her and she is terrified of daylight. Oh yeah, and she bit his jugular.
He is then collected by Mae and her fellow creatures of the night. All he is told is that he has to kill or they are going to kill him.
Then we follow Caleb coming to grips with what has happened through normal mundane things – like the fact he can’t eat food anymore.
The pressure for Caleb to move across and join the coterie as a fully-fledged member and his desire to return to his family is the underlying struggle. Tied to this is his wish not to die – whatever that means for what he has become.
The lack of explanation and just seeing what happens is great storytelling. The justification is also great. You get the impression that the others do not want to tell him anything about his new state of being OR they don’t know much themselves.
Mae definitely would have told Caleb but I don’t think she gets a chance with all the pressure that both she and him are under for him to become a killer.
Caleb wants to be part of the group – for what looks like Mae’s sake but maybe he also is intrigued. So he helps them out of some tight spots – especially during the crisis when they are surrounded by cops in daylight.
Looking more into the film it was interesting to see many familiar faces from Aliens & the nod to the film with it showing in one of the towns the group passes through.
In the background to the main story is the story of Caleb’s family and the cops trying to find him and his kidnappers. This is also done well in that it is believable. The cops couldn’t care less and they don’t think he has been kidnapped. His family do and work very hard to get him back.
By not including any of the usual exposition about being a vampire we just get to see the night-to-night lives in action. Great storytelling and the bar scene after they give Caleb his ultimatum is truly something to behold.
