- Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
- Written by Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red
- Starring
- Adrian Pasdar
- Jenny Wright
- Lance Henriksen
- Bill Paxton
- Jenette Goldstein
- Tim Thomerson
First up, I need to let you know my biases. I hate cowboys. Hate ‘em. Oh, I’ve got nothing against rural people who actually herd cattle (though I rarely find one who can speak in complete sentences). But I hate cowboys. And having lived in Southern Utah for four years, I got a lot of hating done. (Here in Northern Utah, it’s a little better; I’m not absolutely guaranteed to see a cowboy each time I venture out my own front door.)
So it’s a little hard for me to immediately sympathize with Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), the quintessential cowboy in Oklahoma. He’s got the ridiculous big-ass hat, he drives the beat-up pickup in which he listens to country music, he spends his night wasting the life God gave him with equally dull companions, hoping to score a little tail. Too dang bad that, this particular night, the tail he chases is the ethereal Mae (Jenny Wright), a blonde with a bad haircut from “out of town” (the girl, not the haircut).
Yep, he’s the perfect cowboy gentleman; she asks for a ride home to the trailer park, whereupon he tries several times to kiss her, takes her out to introduce her to his horse (which really dislikes her), and, when she gets insistent that he get her home before dawn, stops the truck and insists back that she kiss him.
So no, I don’t feel a bit sorry that she bites him on the neck mid-kiss.
She runs off, and Caleb’s truck refuses to start, so he starts across the plowed fields as dawn breaks. Somehow he doesn’t feel too good; somehow he doesn’t look too good; and somehow, as the sun gets higher, he starts smoking. I don’t mean he smokes a cigarette; I mean Caleb starts exuding smoke.
He almost makes it to the nearest farm, where, by coincidence, his veterinarian father Loy (Tim Thomerson) and his little sister are making a house call, when a mysterious RV with blacked-out windows swings by and snatches him up. Caleb does lose his hat at this point, which means my sympathy for him instantly increases.
Seems he’s found himself unwillingly adopted by a loose “clan” of night people. Top of the food chain is Jesse (Lance Henriksen), who, well, looks as scary as Lance Henriksen; his squeeze is Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein); the class clown is Severen (the always manic Bill Paxton), and the child of this nuclear family is Homer (Joshua John Miller), who’s maybe twelve years old at the outside. At least physically. Truth is, he’s much older. They all are. (In case you’re wondering about the mini-reunion of actors from Aliens, I should note that director and co-writer Kathryn Bigelow was at that time attached to James Cameron, who probably loaned her the pre-assembled cast.)
And Caleb’s given a week to prove he’s figure his new spot in the food chain. That’s not much time, for a cowboy.
In fact, by the next night (after having slept all day), he still hasn’t figured it out. He tries to get a bus home (he even has to hit up a cop for the last three dollars for his ticket), but is too ill and has to get off. Making his way back to Mae, he discovers the ultimate panacea as Mae opens a vein and lets him drink.
Does he finally get it? It’s open for debate…
In the meantime, Loy and Sarah are checking truck stops with a picture of Caleb, looking for anyone who’s seen him, which means that nobody’s home when Caleb tries to call dad.
Mae then tells Caleb the news facts of life, of the need to kill for blood. Edited into that, we get to see the common ploys that the other nightcrawlers use to seek prey: Homer poses as a bicycle crash victim, Severen hitchhikes into a couple of young ladies on the town, and Jesse and Diamondback pick up a hitchiker of their own (and it only becomes more fun when the pickup turns into a holdup).
Caleb’s own first kill is supposed to be a trucker, who obligingly explains how to work the double brakes on a big-ass truck. (This? You think this fact will come in helpful later? Whatever gives you that idea?) But Caleb still can’t bring himself to kill, so once again Mae has to do the dirty work, with Caleb getting his blood secondhand.
Finally, Jesse arranges what could be considered a bloodsucker bachelor party (although bachelor parties don’t usually come with a death-threat ultimatum): the entire clan hits a hick bar in the middle of nowhere. This is the centerpiece of the movie, and a damned fine scene, as Severen skillfully picks a fight, and the whole disfunctional family wipes out the clientele (to the tune of The Cramps singing “Fever” on the jukebox). But Caleb still wusses out.
And it’s right here that the movie begins its downward slide.
Now, I expect all films to have missteps, and so it’s refreshing to have one which is so surefooted in the first half. But the concentration of flaws in the second half here is disconcerting.
The first clue that things are going south (in more ways than geographical) is when the police surround and start firing on the rental bungalow in which the bloodsuckers are holed up. It’s really neat visual trick: the bullets punch holes on all sides through the cheap walls, and the rays of sunlight stream it at all different angles. All different angles? Wait a sec, how many suns are we dealing with here? The sacrifice of reality to an admittedly neat visual trick is a bad sign.
Things get worse when Caleb is reunited with Loy and Sarah, since that scene relies on far too many coincidences and implausibilities, namely:
a) That the “clan” and Caleb’s family happen to pick the same motel;
b) That Sarah wanders around at 5 AM to pick up a Coke from a pop machine;
c) That Homer picks Sarah as a possible “eternal girlfriend”;
d) That the local television station stops broadcasting at 5 AM (Hello? Isn’t that when most stations start broadcasting?)
e) That, on this particular day, the sun decided to come up like it does in the cartoons — “bboinggg!”
And then after this, we’re left adrift as to how much time has passed before the denouement. There’s a comment about how the “days are getting colder”, but since we didn’t know what season it was to begin with, is this supposed to be the same week? Next month? What?
Ruining the ending is a no-no on this one, but I will let slip the fact that that whole truck-brake thing wasn’t just meaningless trivia.
Despite the progression of false steps toward the end, it remains an atmospheric and fresh approach to vampires (you should know that the word “vampire” is never uttered at any time in the movie, nor are false teeth in evidence). There’s a gritty realism to the rural midwest setting which is well exploited, and the Tangerine Dream soundtrack gives the best approximation of that grimed-up southern pathos that can be expected from synthesizers. (Of course, it would have been so much better with a score by Ry Cooder — but then, anything’s better with Ry Cooder.) The special effects are used sparingly, but compensate by being technically perfect (the flames of vampires exposed to sunlight are especially believable).
And also notable is the small part by Troy Evans as the cop Caleb meets in the bus station. Evans always plays a cop.
Recommended.
Some Notable Quotables:
“Hey, Jesse — remember that fire we started in Chicago?”
- Severen
“Well, I’m be goddamned — shitkicker heaven!”
- Severen (on entering the hick bar)
“You were here once before, wasn’t you? Lotsa years back?”
“Yes, I get through here about once every fifty years. Make me a reservation.”- Motel owner and Jesse
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 15
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 3
- ominous thunderstorms: 1
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 3
- Jenette Goldstein (Diamondback) was the science officer in Star Trek: Generations
- Roger Aaron Brown (the cajun trucker) was the Epsilon Technician in Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Don Pugsley (the second truck driver) was a miscellaneous alien on Star Trek: Voyager
