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Near Dark (1987)
In Kathryn Bigelow's directorial debut, low-budget
vampire-western horror film (one of the best US vampire-horror films
of all-time) - the story of a nomadic, tightly-knit band of vampires
in the American Southwest, with the tagline: Blood is Our Life. Darkness,
Our Feeding Ground. And Sunlight, Our Eternal Damnation:
- the opening scene of small-town Oklahoma farm boy
Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) meeting the alluring yet mysterious
young blonde drifter Mae (Jenny Wright) at an ice cream parlor;
their first conversation was very telling: (Caleb: "Have a
bite?"
Mae: "Bite?" Caleb: "I’m just dyin' for a cone" Mae: "Dyin'?");
soon after romance developed, she bit him in the neck just before
dawn as they kissed goodbye in his pickup truck, and he remarked
to himself: "Sure was some kiss"; he soon found himself
weakened, and as he staggered home, he was kidnapped by Mae's makeshift
vampire family, and was slowly transforming into a vampire; he was
reluctant to be persuaded to kill, so Mae would feed him her blood
from her wrist to keep him alive
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Caleb with Mae:
"Just dyin' for a cone"
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Romance Before Her Bite
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- the characters of wise-cracking, swaggering, vicious
desperado-like, cowboy-outlaw 'rebel' vampire Severen (Bill Paxton)
(dressed like rock singer Jim Morrison) - a sociopathic, undead
vampire, who was part of a vampire family led by menacing Southern,
Civil War veteran and patriarch Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen);
also, Jesse's girlfriend Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein) and their
teenaged "son" Homer (Joshua John Miller) who felt inadequate:
("Do you have any idea what it's like to be a big man on the
inside and have a small body on the outside?"); the family
traveled the countryside in a blacked-out Winnebago van and conducted
raids on motorbikes
Severen's Instigation of a Blood-Lusting, Drawn-Out
Roadhouse Bar-Diner Fight with Hicks
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Severen (Bill Paxton)
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Jesse Terrorizing Bar Waitress
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Long-Haired Patron's Neck Broken
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"Finger-Lickin' Good!"
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Taunting Bar Tender
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Bar-Tender Struggling to Load Shotgun Before Being
Killed
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- in the memorable roadhouse bar, a violent massacre
sequence and a famous set-piece, the clan entered a redneck bar
late one night, where Severen called out: "Well, I'll be god-damned.
S--t-kicker heaven!"; he sat down at the bar, and taunted
both a customer (Robert Winley) and the bartender (Thomas Wagner),
and as a bar waitress (Jan King) served drinks to the family, she
was terrorized by Jesse, and then her throat was promptly slit
by Diamondback; this was followed by the horror of Jesse using
the blood to fill a beer mug
- further, Severen insulted one of the long-haired hillbilly
patrons and then broke the neck of a long-haired hillbilly bar patron
after biting into the man's hairy neck ("I hate 'em when they
ain't been shaved"); he hissed: "It's finger-lickin' good";
Severen threatened the bartender who was struggling to reload his
shotgun: "Are you havin' a little trouble with your hog-leg
there?"; after striding down the length of the bar and crushing
beverage glasses, he slit the bartender's throat with two swings
of his boot's spurs
- the spectacular, choreographed daytime shoot-out
scene at a cheap bungalow-motel in which dreaded shafts of light
caused by bullets exposed the vampires to deadly rays of sunlight,
but the clan was rescued by Caleb (although shot by local Kansas
State deputies and on fire from the rays of the sun, he shielded
himself with a blanket as he raced toward a black Ford panel van,
plowed into the motel, and picked up the other vampires)
- the death challenge (a metaphoric "western shootout")
between now-cured Caleb (steering and commandeering a massive tractor-trailer
after Severen shot the driver and exclaimed: "Bullseye!")
and Severen (standing in the middle of the road); Severen was run
over, but bloodily survived, crawled up onto the hood ("Fasten
your f--kin' seat belt!) and proceeded to rip out the engine's wiring;
Caleb jumped out just before he deliberately jack-knifed the truck,
causing an explosion that killed Severen
- the concluding (as the sun came up) sequence when
both Mae and Homer broke through the back window of the vampires'
station-wagon, during a pursuit of Caleb's sister Sarah (Marcie Leeds)
(she was running toward the rescuing arms of her brother Caleb);
Homer's skin began to burn when exposed to the sun, and he blew up;
also, the vampires' station-wagon exploded after Caleb exclaimed: "Roast"
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Sarah Running to Escape
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Homer's Lethal Pursuit of Sarah in Sunlight Before
Exploding
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Sarah Saved in Caleb's Arms
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Vampires' Vehicle Blowing Up: (Caleb: "Roast!")
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Ending: Caleb Assuring Now-Human, Transfused Mae: "It's
just the sun"
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- in the brief 'happy ending' scene, Caleb had just
tranfused Mae back to human at his family's farm - she asked: "Caleb,
what's happening?...I'm afraid"; he hugged and assured her: "Don't
be, it's just the sun"
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Mae's Bloody Goodbye Kiss on Caleb's Neck in Pickup Truck
Caleb Infected and Kidnapped by Mae's Vampire Family
The Daylight Police Raid at a Motel
Blanket-Covered Caleb's Escape to Van to Rescue Everyone
From Motel
"Western Shootout" -- Severen vs. Caleb (Driving
Tractor-Trailer)
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