NEAR DARK remake gets a director!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. There doesn't seem to be a night that passes by without news of another horror remake. Yesterday was THE BROOD and FRIDAY THE 13TH and tonight is the remake of Kathryn Bigelow's sweet as hell '80s piece of cult goodness NEAR DARK.
Once again it's Platinum Dunes and they're producing for Rogue Pictures. They've just hired music video director Samuel Bayer (who has directed videos for everybody from NIRVANA to Justin Timberlake) to helm the remake, being scripted by DISTURBIA's Christopher Landon.
I quite like the original, a really fascinating take on the vampire legend with a perfectly over-the-top performance from Bill Paxton. I hope they don't fuck it over.
Kathryn Bigelow is one of my favorite directors. You know her work; she directed Blue Steel, Point Break, and Strange Days. She is a smart filmmaker who imbues her action films with a style and cinematic artistry not often seen on this side of the Atlantic. Yes, I am saying that about a movie starring Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey, so bite it.
Two sequences stand out in memory from Near Dark. First is the "bar" scene. Three songs play on the jukebox while our band of dusty, western-inspired vampires slowly and methodically decimate the denizens of a small hick bar. Each song triggers a new "phase" of the carnage, and mirrors the action impeccably. Simply amazing filmmaking. The second scene is the climax ... which I won't spoil here. Suffice it to say, Lance Henrickson is a bad mother-bleeper, and you can really see the fire in his eyes.
Is the universe so bereft of ideas that Hollywood has to remake good films? I can understand taking another crack at a bad film. But come on! Children of the Corn, Texas Chainsaw Masacre, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, Near Dark ... What's next? Gremlins?
To answer Quint's concern: they've already f-ed the original over by deciding to remake it.
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