Near Dark

After being bitten, an Oklahoma youth is abducted by a roving group of vampires.

Near Dark is a modest western-horror buoyed by a strong cast. While Adrian Pasdar does a descent job in the lead, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and especially Joshua John Miller steal the show as amoral—but still relatable—vampires.

Writer-director Kathryn Bigelow does a great job of grounding the story in a dusty reality (the word “vampire” is never used) and handles the gorier aspects of the story with aplomb. Instead of drenching the film in blood, she saves it for a few key scenes and then uses it to hammer home the vampire’s vicious nature.

Unfortunately Near Dark has one really big flaw. After going through all the trouble of keeping the film grounded in a plausible reality, Bigelow expects the audience to believe that a simple home transfusion is all you need to cure vampirism. Sure, a little nick on the neck will turn you in a matter of hours, but a quick transfusion in the barn will have you right as rain.