Years before Kathryn Bigelow won an Academy Award for her work on The Hurt Locker (2008), she was making wholly original genre pictures like Blue Steel, The Loveless and Near Dark. Near Dark was released around the same time as popular vampire films Fright Night (1985) and The Lost Boys (1987) but failed to find the same audience. People attributed this to Bigelow's decision to incorporate elements of the then-unpopular western genre and the audience becoming sick of vampires. Engaging and beautifully shot, Near Dark deserved more. Bigelow deserves credit for amalgamating the vampire, western and biker films and making a film that is unlike any other. The vampires also have a much harder edge to them than in other vampire films, eschewing camp in favour of violence. These are no Twilight-esque teeny boppers. Sits alongside The Hunger (1983) as a tragically underrated 1980's vampire film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DviGOGPttFE
