- Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
- Written by Kathryn Bigelow, Eric Red
- Stars Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
- Link: Near Dark (1987)(https://amzn.to/3xA0iBo)
Synopsis
Caleb and his group of friends see a pretty girl on the street. Her name is Mae, and she’s real friendlyto Caleb. They go for a drive, and she tells him to stop the truck. She goes on about listening to the night, but all he wants is her. He introduces her to his horse, because he’s a cowboy, of course. The horse doesn’t like Mae and runs off. She says she needs to be home by dawn, but Caleb’s slow.
Will they make it home in time? No, because he stops the truck and demands a kiss. She gives it to him, but the sun slowly rises… She bites him and runs off. The truck won’t start, so Caleb starts walking. As the sun comes up, he starts to smoke. As he burns, a Winnebago roars up and pulls him inside. Caleb’s father and sister watch as they drive off.
Mae and a bunch of other… people are in the Winnebago, and yeah, they’re all vampires. Mae says that she’s turned Caleb. Which really annoys all the others. The leader, Jesse, says they’ll give him a week to see if he fits in. Caleb runs off, tries to eat a candy bar, but it makes him sick. He boards a bus to go back home, but he just gets sicker and sicker. He goes back to Mae, who makes him drink blood from her. He feels terrific after that.
Meanwhile Loy and Sarah, Caleb’s family, start asking around and looking for him. Mae explains that Caleb has to learn to kill. We see Homer, the child vampire, lure in a victim by pretending to be in a bicycle accident. Severen picks up a ride with two young women. Jess and Diamondback pick up a pair of bandits pretending to be hitchhikers. Caleb can’t bring himself to kill yet, so he continues to feed from Mae. Jesse insists that Caleb make a kill tonight, or he’s out.
The whole group go to a bar and do mayhem. Caleb gets shot in the belly and is given a young cowboy to kill, but he just can’t do it and lets the kid go.
Jesse rents a motel room for the group, but the clerk recognizes him from way back. The police arrive… in broad daylight. There’s a shootout, and every bullet through the wall lets in a little more sunlight. Caleb puts on a blanket and runs for the van – searing in the sunlight as he goes – which he brings back to rescue the others. The van has its windows blacked out, so they get away. They’re so grateful to Caleb that, they decide he fits in for now.
That night, Homer brings in a girl he meets outside, and it turns out to be Caleb’s sister, Sarah. His father, Loy, shoots Jesse, who spits up the bullet. Caleb, Loy, and Sarah run out into the sunlight and jump into their truck, leaving the vampires behind.
Loy is a veterinarian, and he knows how to give a transfusion to Caleb. When morning comes, the sunlight doesn’t hurt him anymore. Except the vampires know where he lives…
The vampires come and take Sarah away, and Caleb has to pursue them on a horse. Severen has a traffic accident. Caleb grabs Sarah and runs off. The others pursue as the sun rises. Homer explodes in the sun. Jesse and Diamonback go out with a bang as well. Mae— well, she gets an unexpected resolution.
Commentary
If you ever wanted to learn how to be a vampire, this is a good one, but I don’t know if I’d want to team up with this group, since they’re all just plain crazy and needlessly wasteful. You’d think a group that wanted to literally live forever would be a little more low-profile and plan better. I lost track of how many times these guys got caught in a sunrise— couldn’t they bother stealing a watch? Why was Homer so infatuated with Sarah, whom he’d only seen once?
It’s very well-paced, well acted, and a lot of fun to watch. This is easily one of the best modern takes on vampires— although the word “vampire” is never spoken.