150 Words About . . .NEAR DARK (1987)
By James Newman
It’s a horror flick. It’s also a Western, kinda. And it was the directorial debut of future Academy Award-winner Kathyrn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). No wonder it’s so good.
When cowboy Caleb meets Mae, it’s love at first sight. This girl’s got baggage, though, to say the very least. Mae belongs to a family of bloodsuckers who prowl our nation’s highways in an RV with blacked-out windows. And soon they’ll be his family too…
The late, great Bill Paxton steals the show as the most vicious member of the nomad clan (he’s not just doing this to survive; watch how much fun he’s having when the family turns a biker bar into their personal all-you-can-drink buffet!).
Lance Henriksen gets the best line in the movie, though. After Caleb asks him how old he is: “Let’s put it this way. I fought for the South. We lost.”
