“Howdy. I’m gonna separate your head from your shoulders. Hope you don’t mind none.”
Horror is a genre where a lot of up and coming directors make their mark. The audience might not be huge, but it’s dedicated. Serious horror fans will see almost anything, and they’ll seek it out themselves. No massive marketing budgets required, no huge stars needed to put on the poster. Sam Raimi did it with The Evil Dead, then went on to pretty much invent the modern superhero movie with his Spiderman series. Steven Spielberg did it with Duel, then went on to be the most financially successful director of all time. And while it may not have been her first movie, Kathryn Bigelow used the genre to get noticed in the early days of her career, with Near Dark.
Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) is on a date with Mae (Jenny Wright) and everything is going well. Until she freaks out about needing to be home before dawn. The freak out turns into some mad rooting, which turns into Mae biting into Caleb’s neck. The next morning, when the sun starts to burn his skin, it’s revealed that Mae is a vampire. And now, thanks to her bite, so is Caleb. To help him adapt to her way of life, Mae tries to ingratiate Caleb with her own blood sucking family, lead by Lance Henriksen as Jesse, and including Bill Paxton as Severen. (more…)