20 Things You Didn't Know About Near Dark
16. Bigelow Breaks All The Rules
Near Dark treads a lot of unfamiliar ground for a horror film; it's a vampire film alright, so why did Bigelow not include so many of the character tropes we now expect from a vampire flick?
This movie has a vital piece of foreshadowing right in the opening shot, and much like Ari Aster's Midsommar, everything you need to know is on screen in the first two minutes.
The very first sequence of the film is a close up of a mosquito draining blood from a human arm. So far, so obvious. The next series of shots are of the setting sun, and this is where things get clever - blood gives the vampire life, sunlight will take it away; literally speaking, life and death.