Near Dark is a 1987 American neo-Western horror film co-written and directed by Kathryn Bigelow (in her solo directorial debut), and starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and Jenette Goldstein.
The plot follows a young man in a small Oklahoma town who becomes involved with a family of nomadic American vampires.
Their charismatic leader, Jesse Hooker, reluctantly agrees to allow Caleb to remain with them for a week to see if he can learn to hunt and gain the group's trust.
Mae's flesh begins to smoke as she is burned by the sun but she carries Sarah into Caleb's arms, taking refuge under his jacket.
Near Dark was part of a resurgence of American vampire films in the 1980s, along with the likes of Fright Night, Once Bitten (both 1985), Vamp (1986), The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad (both 1987).
[4] The combination of the genres, which Bigelow and Red felt were ripe for revisionist interpretation, had been visited at least twice before on the big screen, with Curse of the Undead (1959) and Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966).
Bigelow knew (and later married) director James Cameron, who directed Aliens (1986), a film that shares three cast members (Paxton, Goldstein and Henriksen) with Near Dark.
The consensus reads: "Near Dark is at once a creepy vampire film, a thrilling western, and a poignant family tale, with humor and scares in abundance.
"[11] In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, "Ms. Bigelow's too-studied compositions – Caleb in silhouette riding a horse toward the camera – clash with her unstudied approach to the characters' looks".
[12] Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader was impressed by Bigelow's first foray into big budget films with the "hillbilly vampire" movie, describing it as "beautifully shot".
[13] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post said the intermixing of vampire legends, westerns and biker movies has a result that is "both outrageous and poetic; it has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else – something that comes close to genuine emotion".
[15] Richard Corliss of Time magazine called Near Dark "weird (and) beautiful" and "the all-time teenage vampire love story".
[19] Alan Jones of Radio Times awarded it four stars out of five, calling it a "1980s horror landmark" and "one of the best vampire movies ever made."
Jones described it as a "visually stunning and frightening package, spinning a genuinely scary tale" and highlighted the "stand-out degenerate performances" of Henriksen and Paxton.
[24][25] In December 2008, Platinum Dunes producer Bradley Fuller stated that the project had been put on hold due to similarities in conception with Twilight (2008), a film which also contained a romance between human and vampire characters.