I love this movie so much

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I decided to watch this film when I noticed it mentioned as one of the Top 10 vampire films. Uhm...no... The film is rather slow moving and not much vampire activity here either. The farmer's son (Adrian Pasdar) probably deserved to be turned into a vampire because he was so utterly forward and tripling around the drifter (Jenny Wright) like a rabbit sniffing a carrot!! It was annoying, actually, and I couldn't wait for her to bite him to get it over with. From there the film is really more of a drama about a father searching for his missing son. It was a very 'different' vampire film in that sense. I also found the film too much in the dark. Ya, I know, I understand the vampire concept, but I still want to see what is happening. The vampires in the film are also very dysfunctional, very neo-noir-ish.

A 'cult classic', apparently, but in actuality, a very silly vampire movie.Severen, the vampire brood leader, who must be at least 140 years old (he started the great Chicago fire and fought in the American civil war). He has turned a bunch of school dropout hillbillies and they roam the highways of the US, feeding on whomever they come across. That's the best he's managed in 140 years.They think they're like wolves, top predators, but they're more like vultures, their victims are the weakest and most vulnerable. They live in whatever vehicle they've most recently stolen and hide from the sun each day in random locations.Despite leaving a trail of bodies wherever they go (they never attempt to hide anything), and usually mass destruction, not to mention stealing a lot of cars, they evade the police easily. There is one shootout with the cops, which they escape by driving away in a panel van. The police are riddling their location with bullets, then they drive away, and the cops are like, eh, at least we tried. Time for donuts.So they turn a new recruit (it seems to be a thing they do when one of them is bored), but he doesn't want to be a vampire. So his father, a wheat farmer, saves him and his new ex-vampire girlfriend, with a full blood transfusion. Wait, what?On the stupid vampire movie scale, it falls somewhere between Twilight and Blade. A remake of this movie was put on indefinite hold when Twilight came out, because their basis was considered too similar. Near Dark came out the same year as the original 'The Lost Boys'. This was the last movie made by F/M Productions, who went belly-up shortly after. I'm not surprised.StarringJenette Goldstein, vampire girlfriend of the leader, pretty sure she bit the kid so she could pretend they had a family. Formally Vasquez in Aliens, will be with Paxton again in TitanicLance Henriksen, the leader of this band of losers. Also in Aliens with Paxton. It was producer James Cameron (who would later marry the director) who suggested that these 3 Aliens actors be in this movie Jennie Wright, bored high school dropout vampire. Was the groupie in Pink Floyd: The WallAdrian Pasdar, human/vampire/human. Most famous as Nathan Petrelli from Heroes. Least famous as the voice of Iron Man in nearly every Marvel cartoon. Had a bit part in the Martini Ranch's music video 'Reach' (Paxton's short-lived rock band) Not StarringJohnny Depp, who failed the audition. He hadn't done much up to this point, but same year he would star in 21 Jump Street, which started his career. If he had gotten a role in this clunker of a movie, he might have remained forgotten like most of these actorsMichael Biehn, who would have been the 4th Aliens actor in this movie, but he didn't like the script.

I expected a lot more from Kathryn Bigelow and with three of the leads from Aliens, which came out the year before I thought this was gonna deliver.The story is pretty lame and it might have worked better with more experienced actors playing Caleb and Mae.Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenett Goldstein were all so much better in Aliens. Lance wasn't psycho enough as Jess. And Michael Biehn would have been a better choice as Paxton's Severen, as he can play psychos much more convincingly. The kid playing Homer, is laughable and doesn't fit in with the others.Jennet Goldstein was only ever really good in Aliens. She's just not a very good actor. The effects were decent for a movie with a budget, smaller than The Terminator, but Kathryn Bigelow is no James Cameron when it comes to directing action and violence.Maybe you're thinking the comparison is unfair and Bigelow has certainly made much better movies after this. But not comparing would be impossible. Because not only were Bigelow and Cameron once married, she also uses half the cast from Aliens and Aliens even plays in a cinema in this movie.Have I seen this movie 20 years ago, I would have loved it. it delivers in violence and effects, except the scene where Homer starts to burn In the sun. This was before cgi and the flames were literally animated and painted on to the film.As far as vampire movies go, I've seen worse than this and much much better. If you enjoy vampire flicks mixed with R-rated action, I suggest you skip this and watch the first Blade and the two first Underworld movies instead.

Vampire movies are the easiest kinds of horror movies to attend. We know all the rules and we know the scenerio. But it's what the director does with those two conventions that determine the film's success.We know that vampires can never go out in daylight (a rule which is based around a logic that I have yet to understand). The second thing we know is that vampires must constantly drink blood (why do they never visit slaughter houses?) This allows us the scenerio from almost every single vampire movie that has probably ever been made. Two characters are necessary: one has been a vampire since time began (no one is ever bitten in the 60s) and the other is a young virgin that the vampire bit and must now go through the agonizing process of figuring out how he/she is going to live for all of eternity living by all of the rules mentioned above.Kathryn Bigelow's 'Near Dark' takes these rules and does something neat with them. She sets a family of vampires in a van with the new guy (Adrian Pasdar) and puts them on a nocturnal trek across the southwest. Along the way we run into a redneck bar where some of the best scenes in the movie come to life (which I won't spoil with one single word). Following hot on their trail is Pasdar's father (Tim Thomerson) who thinks he knows how to cure his son.This leads to all sorts of complications that we can predict. You know what to expect but you are waiting to see the approach that Bigelow takes. This movie is fun, I enjoyed the swaggering characters, I enjoyed the plot twists and I enjoyed the preposterousness of the whole enterprise. You know what to expect but you don't expect it to come together this well.