{"id":32707,"date":"2009-12-13T10:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jordanhthonextract2.wordpress.com\/2009\/12\/13\/near-dark-3"},"modified":"2011-09-23T04:00:02","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T04:00:02","slug":"near-dark-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jordanorlando.com\/ns\/near-dark-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Near Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Horrorthon \u201909 is “officially” over (and I\u2019ve already done my summation<\/a>), so I don\u2019t feel compelled to do a particularly circumspect job on this flick. I wasn\u2019t even going to review it, except I\u2019m a little bit irritated because I feel like every time I turn around these days I\u2019m dealing with James Cameron, and damned if my experience with this vampire movie doesn\u2019t fall right into that category.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been hearing about Near Dark<\/i> since it came out (in the late \u201880s), always in glowing terms, with everyone insisting that I see it. As far as I can tell it\u2019s a beloved, favorite example of the genre. But what I wasn\u2019t quite picking up on was the telltale detail that it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. And this turns out to be a real dealbreaker, not only because she\u2019s terrible<\/i> (take a look at Blue Steel<\/i> or Strange Days<\/i> if you don\u2019t believe me) but because she\u2019s a pure Cameron minion, who was making movies under his ham-handed, super-obvious, egomaniacal tutelage for several years (while being married to him). Everybody made a big deal about how she\u2019s female and therefore it\u2019s \u201cinteresting\u201d that she directed the execrable Blue Steel<\/i> (in which cop Jamie Lee Curtis has to shoot psycho lover Ron Silver) and especially \u201cinteresting\u201d that she directed Point Break<\/i> (\u201c100% pure adrenaline!\u201d) which I have not seen, but which I\u2019m not exactly optimistic about. But it\u2019s just not that interesting; it\u2019s merely an excuse to give her credit for only half-knowing how to do anything. (I’m not saying female directors are inept, obviously; I’m saying that Bigelow is an inept director who gets undue credit simply because it’s unusual for a woman to be directing action movies.) It\u2019s more of Cameron\u2019s ridiculous \u201cfeminist\u201d posturing.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year my friend Alex tried to induce me to go with him to see Hurt Locker<\/i>, which, like the rest of Bigelow\u2019s oeuvre<\/i>, is supposed to be so brilliant, but once I saw her name as the director the jig was up and I demurred. He reported back that the movie was \u201cwell-intentioned but strangely disappointing,\u201d which is exactly how I feel about Near Dark<\/i>; after all the buildup it\u2019s just an ineptly-told vampire story, with the same kind of leaden plotting and scenery-chewing acting as Strange Days<\/i> (a truly horrible movie), and with what seems like most of the cast of husband-to-be Cameron\u2019s Aliens<\/i> (Lance Henrickson, Bill Paxton, Jeanette \u201cVasquez\u201d Goldstein) reproducing their signature schtick. There\u2019s even a theater playing Aliens<\/i> in the background of one shot, just in case you miss the point.<\/p>\n

The premise is suggestive, but the premise is always<\/i> at least \u201csuggestive\u201d in Kathryn Bigelow movies. The concept of a group of vampires operating like an outlaw biker gang, moving around the American Southwest in search of their prey, is kind of cool, and their power structure and methodology is intriguing. But they\u2019re pretty lame vampires; they don\u2019t obey the standard vampire rules (since Bigelow doesn\u2019t have the directing chops to create sequences where they\u2019d be bats or flip sideways and disappear or suddenly have fangs, and she and her co-writer don\u2019t care anyway) and they don\u2019t seem supernatural at all. The actors who aren\u2019t from Aliens<\/i> (Adrian Pasdar as Caleb, the reluctant new recruit, and Jenny Wright as Mae, his undead tutor) are colorless and lame. The second act builds, not to a suspenseful or exciting sequence, but to a Cameron-style ridiculously-overblown shoot-out (with big vehicles colliding); some of the shots are in slow motion, Peckinpah style, but none of it has the balletic grace that Cameron himself can always supply. (There are ten-minute stretches of Terminator 2 Judgment Day<\/i> and Aliens<\/i> that are sheer kinetic perfection; Bigelow has no idea how to construct anything nearly so sublime.) Then the plot takes a truly ridiculous hard left turn, violating vampire principles nearly beyond recognition before climaxing with more truck collisions and gasoline fireballs and cowboy bullshit, and a final ending that (like all Cameron-esque stories) gets lost between macho nihilism and cornpone sentimentality.<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t be so irritated by Near Dark<\/i> except that I feel ripped off, and, worse, I feel ripped off by James Cameron<\/i>, which is a sensation I\u2019m just awfully tired of. Of course his lame girlfriend director has the same problems as he does (super-obviousness, pretentiousness, a nerd\u2019s unquenchable desire to be \u201cbadass,\u201d and a bizarre faith in Jeanette Goldstein\u2019s acting ability). Of course there are legions of fanboys and fangirls going bananas over what turns out to be an artlessly violent comic strip of a movie. (I\u2019ve got nothing against comic strips or movie violence, obviously, but there\u2019s no other way to put it.) Bigelow is the kind of filmmaker who wants it both ways—who wants to be given credit for \u201cplaying with the boys\u201d (in both senses, in Bigelow\u2019s case) but simultaneously expects to be given special dispensation for inability to cover the bases, on the grounds that this \u201cunconventional\u201d approach is somehow preferable. It\u2019s like Tim Burton sneering \u201cI\u2019m not interested in \u2018what a great shot.\u2019\u201d (Convenient!) According to fans on IMDB, I\u2019m supposed to be \u201cimpressed\u201d that Near Dark<\/i> has no effects shots, exactly the way I\u2019m supposed to be \u201cimpressed\u201d that M. Night Shyamalan disdains all optical\/digital\/visual trickery, since it would somehow compromise his \u201cpure-film\u201d vision. Sorry, no sale.<\/p>\n

ADDENDUM:<\/b><\/font> P. S.<\/i> It’s not scary.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n