• Member Since 24th Jan, 2015
  • offline last seen Saturday

MisterNick


I live life deliciously.

More Blog Posts76

  • 113 weeks
    Hardware (1990)

    Where have I been. I could attempt some yarn about how I was circling the drain or something overly dramatic full of the type of pseudo symbolism that the going through puberty set thinks is edgy and dark. In reality it's a lot of navel gazing and thinking you understand something more than you actually do or being overly disappointed when things don't work out because of a lack of experience,

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    2 comments · 189 views
  • 128 weeks
    My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021)

    There is or was a debate that carried on after the end of the series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that centered around the leadership of Twilight Sparkle. This debate came up when the general plot of the movie I will be reviewing became public knowledge. The backstory of the movie is that somehow magic was lost, the three types of ponies were no longer able to get along and because of

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    4 comments · 254 views
  • 146 weeks
    Lady in White (1988)

    Maybe it's just me but, at a certain point one must consider their lunch or dinner choices before heading into traffic. You see, traffic is a cruel mistress. It slows up, bogs down and in pretty much any other way it can will make your life difficult. Add into it a sizeable Mexican meal and it becomes the slowest most arduous race against the devil to get home and not ruin your pants.

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    2 comments · 198 views
  • 152 weeks
    Galaxy of Terror (1981)

    Pony Tale Adventures has been put out to pasture at the C&D ranch. It was a bit disappointing. The art assets, sound, and general introductory scenario were charming (at least on the safe for work version). It's a shame that we will never see the title make it to fruition. That said the end result wasn't a complete surprise.

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    5 comments · 278 views
  • 164 weeks
    Lake Mungo (2008)

    So, where have I been. I mean honestly this has been the first time I've submitted anything since July of last year. The truth is I've really been absolutely nowhere. I've weaved my way through the many days avoiding angry crowds of one stripe or another. I've paid my bills mostly on time if not for the laziness of the local parcel services I'd be on time. I've worked at my job and one foot

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    7 comments · 235 views
Mar
18th
2017

Near Dark (1987) · 6:07pm Mar 18th, 2017

Well, Party Fouls has been out for a couple of weeks and has chugged along at the pace I'd expected. It's a lengthy extension of a much shorter story I'd written for a competition. So, if you're interested a link to it is in that first sentence there. There will be other stories popping up here as I try to clear out my cache of stuff that needs finishing so, keep an eye out for those as well. Speaking of finishing apparently Starlight Glimmer is done with her "friendship training," at the start of the new season.

This was always a dopey concept and the fact that she graduates from, "Twilight Sparkle's Community College of Friendship and Design," is just bizarre. I mean, it wasn't like she couldn't make friends before. For crying out loud she had a best friend long before she decided to create her own version of 1984/Animal Farm out in the middle of nowhere. She knows how to do this stuff. Then on top of that she loses the map which will apparently send Twilight into a rage that will require Starlight to cast a "calm" spell on everyone while she goes and finds it.

You know, around here we have a similar set up. It's called distract your friend with weed, pizza and video games while you fix whatever you have to fix. Though in Twilight's case it might be the first two and the works of Tolstoy. Then she'll probably have to rely on her buds to help even though I'm not so sure the two wimps (looking at you Thorax and Sunburst) who are her friends are very useful.

I'm just saying that they're the type of dudes who when you have pocket aces are busy doing dishes while you know that two aces are on the bottom of the deck and Bill from accounting is getting way to confident in his three eights. They're the guys who won't go can to can or bottle to bottle with you when it matters. They aren't the ones who are going to distract the conjoined twin that barely uses any of the brain, perpetually drools and asks, "Do you like my sister," while you're trying to make out with said sister. Instead they'll be sitting there horrified later on when you tell them that you had a date with twins who you just couldn't separate.

These guys need to step up and not just be the weirdos in the corner. Friendship demands it.

Speaking of weirdos it seems Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) runs across an RV full of them in the 1987 vampire movie Near Dark. See, Caleb is your typical late teen early twenty something Oklahoma boy who just so happens to spot and get the hots for Mae (Jenny Wright), a bloodsucker who makes his heart skip a beat.

Well, it turns out that Mae is traveling with a chunk of the cast from Aliens (Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein) who are even more interested in blood than she is. Luckily for Caleb (this is arguable) she likes him and decides to just nip him and ultimately kidnap him thus making him a part of the group. In other words typical fourth date stuff. I guess you move quick when you're a vampire.

While it was a box office dud, Near Dark is an interesting movie and has a slightly different take on the vampire legend. It's a welcome change from the ultra stylish pretty people who typically wander around donning fangs and more or less saying, "bleh I'm hot bleh."

The acting is good from a group of people who were either co-starring in big movies or would do some big movies and tv shows later on. Near Dark also represents the second feature length film Kathryn Bigelow (yet another person who had ties to James Cameron) and is pretty well shot.

Where the movie suffers is that it's a little too short. Considering that you have a plot of will Caleb FULLY become one of the vampire crew or not and a subplot of his father and little sister searching for him, the last third of it feels rushed. I'm not saying it needed to be a 2 hour plus epic but ten minutes give or take could have fleshed it out a bit more.

All that said, if you want to see a movie that has a proper, "vampires are unwholesome," feel to it give it a shot. As additional side notes, for what it's worth, the music for the movie was done by Tangerine Dream and if you look in the background in one scene the movie Aliens is playing at the local theater.

Stats: 15 dead bodies, 0 breasts, Throat Slitting, Neck Biting, Head Crunching, Shotgun Blasting, Fire Fu, Truck Fu, Gun Fu, Blood Transfusion Fu, Knife Fu.

Shout outs:
Bill Paxton as Severen is the wild one of the vampire crew. After killing one dude he sucks the blood off his fingers and proclaims, "Finger lickin' good!"

Lance Henriksen as Jesse Hooker the leader of the group who when asked how old he is responds. "Let me put it this way... I fought for the south... we lost."

Adrian Pasdar as Caleb the guy Mae's got the relative hots for and who seems genuinely unsure about all of this stuff.

Tim Thomerson as Loy, Caleb's father who decides to find his boy when the police prove ineffective.

Comments ( 4 )

I always lamented the nerfing of the vampire. From the Apex predator to someone who just mopes around lamenting that they have to live forever looking beautiful. I kinda miss movies like this or Salem's Lot.

4462413 While some could argue that earlier on there were sympathetic or at least more sympathetic vampire characters (Dracula's daughter from the titular movie or Barnabas from Dark Shadows) the real push for the mopey pretty vampire seems to start in the 80s. That's about the time Anne Rice's books seemed to take off. Then in 1994 Interview With a Vampire introduced a bunch of girls to Louis via Brad Pitt and the rest as they say was history.

That's not to say we don't get that apex predator anymore but it doesn't seem to be quite as popular either.

4462521 I remember reading her books ages ago. Everyone said how great they were I thought they were strange. More of a fetish story with fangs it felt like to me.

4464002 Yeah ... maybe just a little bit. Maaaaaaybeeeeee...

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