It's 2025 And I Just Watched 1987's Near Dark For The First Time – These Are My Honest Thoughts

There's a vast, pervasive darkness in Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 solo directorial feature debut, "Near Dark," that often seems like it could consume anyone who touches it. It's so prevalent and ubiquitous that it feels like the main character over flesh-and-blood humans. I guess that's natural (and necessary) in a movie that's about nomadic vampires and their never-ending lifecycle primarily confined to the dead of night. But Bigelow's darkness isn't just about the monsters lurking in the shadows, but the beauty, lust, and alluring independence that attracts them to it in the first place. There's an enticement to it that can seduce even the most innocent and good-hearted of men and women, besides the psychos that are gravitated towards it by nature.

That's how "Near Dark" begins: A clueless and naïve man called Caleb (Adrian Pasdar from "Top Gun") meets a young, petite, and mysterious woman named Mae (Jenny Wright) on the street, and then follows her into the night. He's immediately beguiled by her restrained glamour, but also senses that there's more to her to be discovered beyond her looks. "I've never met anyone like you," he says to Mae, which instantly takes on multiple meanings.

There's a noticeable outdatedness to Bigelow and Eric Red's script, but also a profound poetry that's still intact nearly four decades later. We know right off the bat that Mae is a vampire, but not necessarily her intentions. He flirts and plays with Caleb, but never like a predator with its prey. She likes him enough not to suck his veins dry and instead turns him into her own kind. She gifts him the freedom of the night by taking away all the light. But Caleb never asked for this, and when he realizes what he's becoming and the group of savages Mae belongs to, he panics and desperately tries to backpedal. It's too late, though. He has two choices: learning to kill and be accepted by the group (led by Lance Henriksen's Jesse), or becoming vampire food.

Jesse and his ragtag team of bloodsuckers — Mae, Severen (Bill Paxton), Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), and Homer (Joshua John Miller) — live like nomads, traveling the country in a minivan, looking for prey and all the lawless fun their blood-fuelled existence allows. They're bound by the night and make a feast out of it every chance they get. Although Caleb is somewhat intrigued by all this, thanks to Mae, that's not enough for him to willingly join the crew and leave his normal life behind. He's got a home, a loving father (Tim Thomerson), and a younger sister (Marcie Leeds) who needs him, and he bails to make it back to them until he's not fully turned. Before he could reach them, however, he gets snatched up by Jesse and the others, and forced to obey their rules (learning to kill) or they would cut his (vampire) existence short.

"Near Dark's" story is simple and minimalist by design — a raw and fierce approach to tell a familiar tale — but most of it doesn't feel as daring and provocative today as it must have in the late 1980s. The dialogue is kooky with a poetic undertone and often feels silly rather than cool, including one-liners that are no longer fashionable. But Bigelow's methodical and inspired direction still packs a punch. Her schtick of glamorized masculinity — that made her later works like the iconic "Point Break" and the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker" such refined and fascinating character studies — is already palpable here (if not in full flow yet), in a setting that blends classic horror and western tropes to create a striking mix of phantasmagoria.

For every other moment where the dialogue might fail, there's a gritty, deliciously bonkers bar scene swimming in blood and abrupt violence, a chaotic and fast-paced shootout paying homage to high-octane westerns, or an old-fashioned duel on Main Street where we'll learn how effective a giant truck proves against a vicious bloodsucker. Yet it's not the action set pieces or the unabashed gore that keep Bigelow's movie a helluva good time. It's the sinister yet strangely appealing milieu that the concoction of these various elements adds up to. Thanks to them, "Near Dark" feels like quintessential '80s horror, retaining a sense of nostalgia and style that's as goofy as it is cool — to put it another way, immortally badass leather jackets meeting bad hairdos.

It'd be remiss of me not to bring up the fantastic actors whose shoulders most of the film rests on. Although Pasdar wasn't necessarily leading man quality in those times (let alone today), he's been supported by some of the greatest talents of their generation. It's no coincidence that "Near Dark" is mostly remembered for Paxton's abhorrently vile and vicious performance as Severen, a nasty, evil monster of the night, finding a joyous and bottomless pleasure in killing innocent folks. He's an utter savage here, unhinged and disgusting, cackling vehemently like a hyena high on raw meat, and acting with an assured confidence.

Right behind him is Henriksen, the wise and charismatic "Dracula" of this tight-knit group, frequently donning a diabolical smile that somehow carries the notion of the thousands of victims he must've murdered over centuries. As we know, he mastered in villainy, and that's undeniably on full display here. That's not to say the rest of the cast doesn't deliver — Miller's Homer gets a few particularly eerie and perverse moments, too, and Wright's Mae is as deadly as cute — it's just simply hard to stand out beside such greats as Paxton and Henriksen.

Overall, despite its flaws and sometimes dated feel, "Near Dark" remains a compelling little gem of a horror that demonstrates some of the impeccable skill set Bigelow utilized later in her career, and which made her one of the most influential female directors of her generation. If you've been putting this movie off for some unknown reason (admittedly, I have), I'm here to say that you no longer should. My only advice is to find the right mood (being nostalgic with a thirst for old-fashioned vampire flicks) before pressing that play button. Then, hopefully, you'll find it as exhilarating, delicious, and uniquely entertaining as I did.