Old Vampire Movies Never Die ...
First released on October 2, 1987, Kathryn Bigelow's NEAR DARK is a cowboy-vampire film that, thematically, is an allegory on the dangers of recreational drug use and casual sex. With a budget of $5 million, NEAR DARK total box office is listed around $3.4 million. One would think that would make the film a failure. It wasn't and, in fact, it is currently being in development to be remade with Samuel Bayer directing and distribution by Focus Features.
Ironically, NEAR DARK was, in my opinion, a huge success. Among other things, it developed a rabid cult following making the DVD and other ancillary sales quite robust. The film is still considered by many to be Kathryn Bigelow's best film to date. (Bigelow also directed BLUE STEEL, a fabulous Jamie Lee Curtis film, POINT BREAK, the surfer-dude, bank heist flick, and K:19 THE WIDOWMAKER, a film I never quite got up the energy to go to.) Finally, the film brought together three actors who also starred together in James Cameron's ALIENS. Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and and Jenette Goldstein as the bad, vampire momma, Diamondback. Bigelow would go on to date Cameron, he would produce POINT BREAK.
No cast is yet announced. It will be interesting to see if the remake has the raw energy of the original. When the film first came out, I read every interview I could find about Bigelow and the film. I recall reading that she shot on 35mm film. One article stated that she was so clear on what she envisioned for each scene of the film that she did NOT use the Master Scene technique of filmmaking. According to the article, Bigelow thought it a waste of precious film that she wanted for the more dramatic visual moments. After reading that, I was not surprised to find out that Bigelow trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and won an independent study scholarship at the Whitney Museum. She studied filmmaking, theory and criticism at Columbia.
According to IMDB, Bigelow is currently in post-production on THE HURT LOCKER, a film about a bomb squad in Iraq. It stars Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce. Produced by FIRST LIGHT PICTURES.
