13 Days of First-Time Frights: Near Dark Review

13 Days of First-Time Frights is a series of reviews for October 2019 where Douglas Laman, in the spirit of Halloween, watches and writes about thirteen horror movies he's never seen before. These reviews will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday as well as the last three Wednesdays of October 2019.

Entry #11: Near Dark

She's most well-known in the modern era for the kind of gritty dramas that led her to become the first woman ever to direct a Best Picture-winning movie (not to mention becoming the first woman to win Best Director), Kathryn Bigelow got her start as a filmmaker in the world of genre cinema. Thrillers, science-fiction fare, cop dramas, Bigelow did it all and in the process created a number of iconic movies, including Point Break. Her second ever directorial effort was Near Dark, a vampire Western horror film that also stands as one of her most stylized features even among her unabashedly over-the-top genre movie repertoire.

The Fun Vampire Action Film Blade Proved That Marvel Comics Characters Could Headline Enjoyable Movies

Though it may sound like total poppycock to in a day and age where Rocket Raccoon, Korg and M'Baku are beloved household names, there was a point in time where movies based on Marvel Comics characters were thought of as box office poison. Movies based on Howard the Duck, The Punisher and Captain America had been received with ridicule and dismal box office, the latter element occuring if such films received any kind of domestic theatrical release at all. Meanwhile, attempts to turn characters like Spider-Man into major motion pictures had been fraught with endless problems. In the mid-1990's, it looked like that Marvel Comics character may be doomed to never get proper theatrical movie adaptations.

Then Blade came along.