Near Dark (1987)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer(s): Bigelow, and Eric Red
Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton

Near Dark is a horror movie that seems intently hellbent on avoiding being called a horror movie.  Just take a look at the IMDb entry for it, and you will find that it’s billed as an “Action/Crime/Drama” film; it’s not until you scroll down for the remainder of the genre classifications that the rest are revealed: “Horror/Romance/Thriller/Western” (?).  Much to my shock, and my wife’s excitement, “romance” should actually be in the top 3, because despite all of its (occasionally) gruesome violence, and vampiric theme, this is, above all, a love story.  Think of it as Twilight done right, if that will help.

Adrian Pasdar plays Caleb Colton, a simple country man who lives with his father, and young sister.  One night, while out and about, Caleb stumbles upon Mae (Jennifer Wright), a woman who’s looking for a ride home.  Caleb happily obliges, but things soon take a turn for the weird, when Mae suddenly seems very concerned about making it home before sunrise.  Not realizing the gravity of the situation, Caleb messes around with her, making her kiss him before taking her home—bad move.  As you can probably surmise by now, Mae is a vampire, and she gives him a “vampire’s kiss” before exiting the car and running the rest of the way home.

A confused Caleb attempts to return to his own home, but as luck would have it, his car won’t start—he instead has to make it home on foot.  As the sun rises and starts beating down on him, he gets sicker and sicker.  He’s about in his own yard when inhabitants of an RV kidnap him.  Inside is Mae, and the rest of her vampire family, lead by a genius-as-always Lance Henriksen, as the coolly-named Jesse Hooker.  It seems he has just a few days to prove “he belongs” with the nomadic vampire family, and of course his initiation consists of murdering innocent people for their blood.

And so Caleb must choose—does he ditch his “real life” family for true love, or vice versa?  Or does he find a convenient cop-out loophole that allows him to sacrifice nothing, while still ending up with the woman of his dreams? 

Near Dark was directed by a young Kathryn Bigelow, well before she hit the big time with films like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty.  She makes the most of her comparatively low-budget here, amassing a solid cast, while also delivering some convincing special effects for the time period.  There are some clever scenes, like a daylight shootout with cops at a motel, in which every bullet from the police send piercing rays of light into the room, capable of injuring the vampires even more than the bullets can.  It’s inspired scenes like this that elevate Near Dark above typical vampire fare.

I have to confess that this movie just didn’t grab me the same way it did when I viewed it as a teenager about fifteen years ago.  I always remembered it being endlessly creative and genius, and while there are some cool scenes (like the aforementioned motel sequence), most of it is just straightforward and fairly predictable.  I actually did like how the “romance” aspect comes to the forefront, with both Caleb and Mae making literal sacrifices to prove just how much they love and care for each other (without either of them having to “sparkle”), but the end just felt a little too neat and straightforward for my liking.

RECAP: If you are a vampire movie fan, and don’t mind some intriguing twists on the genre, this is a solid film that should be required viewing.  Hell, really fans of most genres will find something to like here, as the horror aspects are generally downplayed (though there is a massacre sequence at a bar that’s pretty violent, especially for those not familiar with horror films), and the love aspects stand front and center.  The performances are solid, the effects are good, and there are enough clever twists on the vampire subgenre to keep even seasoned fans intrigued.  It’s generally predictable, and not nearly as excellent as I remember from an earlier viewing, but still a million times more inspired than average mainstream fare these days.

RATING: 7/10

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Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Director: Lee Harry
Writer(s): Harry and Joseph H. Earle. Based on a story by Harry, Earle, Dennis Patterson, and Lawrence Applebaum. From characters by Michael Hickey and Paul Caimi.
Starring: Eric Freeman, James Newman, and Elizabeth Kaitan

What can you say about a film like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2?  Actually, there’s a lot you can say about it: this is a movie so terribly amateurish, that I am not at all exaggerating when I say it makes the first one look like a horror classic.  Everything good about the original (and there were some positives, until it all completely falls apart in the second half) is completely squandered by this misguided sequel, which would technically be considered a short film if all the footage from the first was removed.

If you have already seen the first one, you can literally skip to somewhere around the 40 minute mark here...and I’m not kidding.  The entire intro is made up of Ricky, the brother of the murderer in the first one, explaining to a psychiatrist everything leading up to the fate of his beloved brother.  Then, he goes on to discuss how watching his brother die turned him into a murderer.  After this, he proceeds to randomly kill a bunch of people in the least imaginative ways possible.

I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this one, because it’s obvious the filmmakers didn’t, either.  This movie would have completely (and rightfully) fallen into obscurity, if it weren’t for Ricky exclaiming “Garbage Day!” as he shoots a man shielding himself with a garbage can, a scene that somehow went viral.  It might have been humorous, if all of Ricky’s lines weren’t declared in that same hamhanded, over-the-top style; and wait until he gets his hands on a gun, when we’re treated to roughly five minutes worth of him smiling and giggling with unrestrained glee.

The only good thing in this entire movie is Elizabeth Kaitan, who plays Ricky’s kind-of girlfriend Jennifer, who he also ends up murdering, when she takes offense to him flying off the handle and electrocuting her ex-boyfriend.  Kaitan has a certain innocent look to her that really makes her endearing, and while her acting chops aren’t grade A, they don’t even have to be close to stand out in a film like this.  It also helps that she’s incredibly beautiful…how the filmmakers managed to lure her into a pile of junk like this defies all logic.

There’s probably plenty that I’m missing, but all you need to know is, unless you’re a fan of epically bad horror movies, then don’t even bother.  Thank goodness for libraries, so I didn’t even have to waste a penny on this junk.

RECAP: Remove all footage from the first movie, and this would technically be a 45 minute short film.  Remove everything else the original had going for it, and you’d be left with Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.  The only plus is Elizabeth Kaitan as Jennifer, who isn’t in it very long before meeting her demise, just like everyone else. Mostly unimaginative deaths, little gore, and no imagination make this one a yuletide flop that should be avoided by just about everyone, except for bad movie buffs.

RATING: 1.5/10

"GARBAGE DAY!"

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The Monster Squad (1987)

Director: Fred Dekker
Writer(s): Dekker, Shane Black
Starring: Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, and Stephen Macht

I have a personal theory that horror movies should not be rated PG-13.  If they are, I generally won’t watch them.  How can you cram a sufficient amount of terror and/or violence into a rating designed to appeal to teenagers?  Of course, studios do it, because obviously the more people that can see it, the more money they can make, but most such “horror” movies are despicable, lowest-common-denominator drivel that succeed solely because the American public is undemanding; we don’t want anything that might challenge us, or provoke us.  We just want something familiar, that we’ve already seen a thousand times before.

Rant aside, I made an exception for The Monster Squad a decade-or-so back, based solely on the fact it’s one of the very few directing credits for Fred Dekker, the man responsible for crafting one of my favorite horror movies of all time, Night of the Creeps (his only other feature-length credit is for RoboCop 3, so it was very easy to narrow down which one to watch).  I had very little hopes for enjoying the film, expecting it to be a typical movie that panders to younger audiences, but figured I was doing my part by giving it a chance, no matter how small that chance was.

The plot is actually fairly unique for a kid’s flick:  Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Gill Man, and The Mummy come to life, in search of a mystical amulet.  You see, the amulet, which is typically indestructible, can be destroyed within a very small window every hundred years; if it is destroyed, all five movie monsters will be banished to an alternate realm.  As we learn from the intro, Van Helsing and a small team attempted to destroy it back in the 1880s, and failed.  Flash forward to the present day, and a group of kids who call themselves The Monster Squad learn of the amulet and its story.  They also learn that the movie monsters that they idolize are real…and are looking to secure the amulet to help them rule the world.  It also just so happens that the next hundred-year window opens tomorrow… 

It didn’t take long for me to realize that this is NOT a children’s movie, at least not in the traditional sense.  Kids play the main roles, sure, but there is a shocking amount of violence and swearing spattered throughout, to the extent that I’m actually kind of surprised it got away with a PG-13 way back in 1987:  Little girls are called “bitch”, “titties” are mentioned,“faggot” is uttered twice…and there are literally a handful of other such words uttered.  There are also some moments of threat and terror that I could see really getting to younger kids, so once again, the rating is not meant to be taken lightly.

On a technical front, the effects are pretty darn good; I feel like most kids movies will shave a few bucks off the special effects budget, knowing they’re easy to fool and entertain, but even today, the visuals hold up pretty well.  The creatures also look fantastic, but considering they were designed by Stan Winston, that shouldn’t come as a shock.  All in all, I’m surprised at the level of attention and detail that went into this movie; it’s evident that it wasn’t just the kids that Fred Dekker was trying to entertain, and the end result is a fun romp for just about the whole family.

RECAP: This movie is filled with inventiveness, solid writing, and loads of humor, but do not take the rating lightly:  There is quite a bit of profanity, and some violence and terror that may be too intense for younger viewers (even early teenagers).  But for fans of horror films, The Monster Squad is a welcome change from the non-stop gore and splatter that seems to permeate movie screens these days; it’s funny, it’s fun, and it can be enjoyed by parents just as much as children.

SCORE: 8/10

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