Near Dark/John Carpenter's Vampires [Unlocked]

[00:00:00] What up y'all, Leslie here. It's Devil's Night, so before you get out there and fire it up, take a listen to me and Jamie back in 2019 talking about two top tier vampire flicks, Catherine Bigelow's Near Dark and John Carpenters Vampires.

[00:00:17] As always, if you want bonus episodes like this when they come out, just subscribe.

[00:00:22] Sesh.show

[00:00:23] Patreon.com slash Struggle Session

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[00:00:28] Thank you all so much for listening.

[00:00:30] Hope you're having a great spooky season.

[00:00:32] We'll have a new episode with Jamie and I talking Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead momentarily, but in the meantime, enjoy this classic.

[00:00:44] Hope you're having a great spooky season. Peace.

[00:00:47] Hello everyone. Welcome to the Vampire Castle Podcast. I'm Leslie III.

[00:00:52] I'm Jamie Peck.

[00:00:53] And we are, of course, the only podcast with the name Vampire Castle that actually talks about actual vampires.

[00:01:03] Yeah, never mind the one that's like appropriating Gothic American culture.

[00:01:07] Yeah, it's, you know, you never want to culturally appropriate, especially, you know, Gothic socialist, vampirist culture.

[00:01:16] It's a culture, it's not a costume.

[00:01:19] Indeed.

[00:01:19] Indeed.

[00:01:20] And today we'll be talking about two, you know, cult classic vampire movies that are actually really secretly westerns.

[00:01:31] In fact, both directors of the directors of both these films did not want to make vampire movie.

[00:01:37] They wanted to make a western, but had to make it a vampire western because that's what they could get money to make at the time.

[00:01:44] Right. And of course, I'm talking about 1987's Near Dark, directed by Catherine Bigelow.

[00:01:50] It is not a prequel to Zero Dark Thirty, in case you were wondering.

[00:01:54] Not a prequel to Zero Dark Thirty.

[00:01:55] Or maybe it is. Who knows?

[00:01:58] Maybe the CIA is the real vampires.

[00:02:01] There is probably less torture in Near Dark than in Zero Dark Thirty.

[00:02:07] Oh, definitely.

[00:02:07] And Jessica Chastain does not go on Twitter defending the vampires of Near Dark.

[00:02:13] So those are the only differences.

[00:02:14] And then 1998's Vampires, John Carpenter's Vampires, Vampire with a Dollar Sign, actually,

[00:02:24] which is based on a really, really good book by Jonathan Stakely, one of my fantastic science fiction authors that basically only wrote two books, Vampires in Armor.

[00:02:35] And what he said about the film version of his excellent, really high-octane thriller of a horror book is that they took the title and the name of the main character and changed every single word after that.

[00:02:50] Because this film has no connection to the book.

[00:02:53] Unfortunately, the book is much better than the movie, actually.

[00:02:56] So if you like vampire fiction, I would definitely recommend reading John Stakely's novel.

[00:03:03] But I still enjoy the film, too, quite a bit.

[00:03:05] Oh, my God.

[00:03:06] I totally missed that there was a dollar sign in the title.

[00:03:09] Like, I feel like I need to watch it again now.

[00:03:13] Well, because they're supposed to be vampire hunters.

[00:03:15] So what they're doing is they do it for money.

[00:03:18] There were a couple of low-budget sequels to this one starring Jon Bon Jovi as the prime vampire hunter, which I've never seen it.

[00:03:31] But it looked pretty bad.

[00:03:34] It probably was pretty bad.

[00:03:37] I'll watch it some night when I'm really stoned.

[00:03:39] It'll be fun.

[00:03:40] And you did get stoned to watch these movies, correct?

[00:03:43] I did.

[00:03:43] I watched the first movie.

[00:03:45] I was pretty stoned.

[00:03:46] And the second movie being Near Dark.

[00:03:50] About the first half of it, I was pretty stoned.

[00:03:53] And then today, I did not get stoned to finish it because I was jumping on with you.

[00:03:59] And I didn't want to sound stupid.

[00:04:02] I appreciate that a lot, Jamie.

[00:04:06] It's nice to have a co-host who doesn't get stoned for the show and doesn't want to sound stupid.

[00:04:12] If it works for you, it works.

[00:04:14] But I am not a high-functioning stoner.

[00:04:16] It would be funny content, but it wouldn't be very good.

[00:04:21] Well, I'll go with sober, Jamie, for now.

[00:04:24] All sober co-hosts for now.

[00:04:26] Drinking some good old New York City tap water.

[00:04:29] All right.

[00:04:30] So let's start off with John Carpenter's Vampires, a movie that comes second in chronology, but that was the first one I watched.

[00:04:40] Because Near Dark was more of a cult classic.

[00:04:42] People started rediscovering it, I would say, maybe 10 years ago.

[00:04:47] John Carpenter's Vampires, I remember when it came out.

[00:04:50] Because it came out in, like, 98, 99, after, you know, a couple of, like, Blade had been out for a little bit or come out around the same time.

[00:05:01] And kind of vampires were back in a way.

[00:05:05] Oh, yeah.

[00:05:05] But, like, as, like, monsters.

[00:05:07] So in the last episode of Vampire Castle, we talked about interview with the vampire and how that changed the vampire mythos.

[00:05:13] Where, you know, again, it was very European and elegant.

[00:05:18] But also with this, you know, deep pathos.

[00:05:21] And all the vampires were, you know, sad and lonely and fully human and had all these internal lives.

[00:05:31] And vampire, but vampires especially, is an extreme counterpoint to that type of vampire.

[00:05:40] Yeah, I gotta say, maybe I was a little bit spoiled by interview with the vampire, but I was very disappointed at the lack of vampire protagonists.

[00:05:50] Yeah, like, the vampires are just, like, assholes in this movie.

[00:05:54] They're monsters.

[00:05:55] They're monsters.

[00:05:56] They're just monsters.

[00:05:58] There is a separation, so the masters have a little bit more intelligence.

[00:06:02] But most of the vampires in the film, they're just goons.

[00:06:07] They're almost, like, zombie-like vampires.

[00:06:09] You're not really supposed to take them.

[00:06:12] They don't really have an internal life.

[00:06:14] They're just blood drinkers who live in crypts, like the old-school style, you know, vampires.

[00:06:19] They live in these dark places, come out, eat people, make more vampires.

[00:06:23] And our vampire hunters, led by Jack Crow, who worked for the Catholic Church, are basically exterminators.

[00:06:31] They're less than hunters.

[00:06:33] They're, like, because they're really, you know, quite well-equipped to handle these goons.

[00:06:38] And the goons are kind of defenseless.

[00:06:40] Like, that opening scene where, like, they're stabbing all these vampires to death is quite gruesome.

[00:06:46] And you could almost feel a little bit sorry for the vampires because they seem very confused not to know what's going on.

[00:06:53] They're just being, you know, brutally, brutally, like, ripped apart.

[00:06:57] Yeah, like, I felt bad for the vampires the whole way through and was rooting for them.

[00:07:02] Like, they were just minding their fucking business.

[00:07:04] Like, they don't even really set it up.

[00:07:06] Like, here's all the murders these vampires are doing.

[00:07:08] They're just, like, automatically bad and deserve to die.

[00:07:12] Well, you would – I would assume the vampires are doing murders.

[00:07:16] I – it just feels like those vampires are doing a bunch of murders.

[00:07:20] But it is worth knowing, like, most of the vampires are, like, Hispanic people.

[00:07:25] Like, they're, like, you know, so you see – he has kind of a diverse crew.

[00:07:30] But Jack Crow is, of course, played by reactionary right-wing asshole James Woods, who my wife, when she was watching this film, said,

[00:07:40] I could never, you know, take him as a hero.

[00:07:44] He's just too narrow-hipped for it.

[00:07:47] Oh, yeah.

[00:07:48] Like, when he comes upon that nest or whatever of Mexican vampires, I'm like, wow, these Mexicans are really putting up a fight.

[00:07:56] Like, the fact that they're vampires is probably secondary to him.

[00:07:59] Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:01] Like, he's just very excited to kill some immigrants, basically.

[00:08:06] Yeah.

[00:08:07] And he – the film does portray the hunters, and this is kind of from the book, as not necessarily that heroic.

[00:08:16] Like, they're really kind of, like, shitty people.

[00:08:19] When they kill all the vampires and they celebrate in the town, they, like, destroy the hotel room, order a bunch of sex workers to come and service them.

[00:08:30] Like, they're really, like, not, like, good people.

[00:08:35] They're, like, hard-drinking assholes.

[00:08:38] Yeah.

[00:08:38] They are not afraid to say the F-slur or to call women bitches or slap them in the face.

[00:08:43] No.

[00:08:44] No.

[00:08:44] Or the sex workers around, pass them around.

[00:08:47] They're, like – they're completely, utterly shitty and under the employ of the Catholic Church.

[00:08:53] It is kind of cool when he tortures the priest, though.

[00:08:56] It is.

[00:08:57] It is.

[00:08:58] He slaps the shit out of it.

[00:09:00] No, he cuts his hand.

[00:09:01] He smacks – he slaps him with a gun and then, like, cuts his hand.

[00:09:05] Yeah, that is pretty dope.

[00:09:07] Yeah.

[00:09:08] He's – what did he say?

[00:09:09] He's, like, you're going to get cut, motherfucker.

[00:09:12] You're god boy or whatever.

[00:09:14] Yeah.

[00:09:15] And he's, like, no.

[00:09:16] No, he, like, tells them to watch his language and then he fucking smacks the shit out of him.

[00:09:21] Like, let me tell you about language.

[00:09:23] You're going to tell me what I want to know.

[00:09:24] So, the plot of this film basically is these are, you know, highly skilled vampire hunter, a team that the Catholic Church runs because nobody knows that vampires exist.

[00:09:34] So, it's up to the Catholic Church to kill them all.

[00:09:38] But you do find out that it was the Catholic Church who created all the vampires, basically.

[00:09:43] So, that's why they have the hunters to – not to, you know, protect these people or save humanity, but to cover up their secret and their wrongdoing, which seems very accurate from what we know about the Catholic Church in the real world.

[00:09:58] What are you talking about?

[00:10:01] I mean, the Catholic Church has never done anything like that before.

[00:10:04] No, they're very – they're usually very open about all their little secrets.

[00:10:09] Like, they would never hide a bunch of vampires or hide a bunch of pedophiles on the island or anything like that.

[00:10:16] No, never.

[00:10:18] And so, Jack Crowe, he's good.

[00:10:20] They're pretty good at this job.

[00:10:21] They got a little swagger to it.

[00:10:23] They take out all the vampires in a very gory, gory scene because this is John Carpenter and he knows how to do some damn gore.

[00:10:32] Very kind of tactile, too.

[00:10:36] Like, they have like a winch that they tie a crossbow to a winch that's on a truck and they shoot the vampire with the crossbow and then drag them out into the sunlight.

[00:10:48] And they just fucking explode into flames, leaving only their burning skull left basically of their body.

[00:10:57] And Adam Baldwin, who is on the vampire – no, Daniel Baldwin.

[00:11:03] Sorry, sorry.

[00:11:04] The thick Baldwin.

[00:11:04] One of the lesser Baldwins.

[00:11:05] The thick Baldwin.

[00:11:06] He's not lesser.

[00:11:07] He's thick.

[00:11:08] He's the thick Baldwin.

[00:11:09] He's greater.

[00:11:10] I mean, greater in mass.

[00:11:11] Yes.

[00:11:12] Lesser in stature.

[00:11:14] Yes.

[00:11:15] And he stacks up all the skulls on their little jeep.

[00:11:19] Like, it's very, very brutal and not heroic in any sense.

[00:11:25] It's just them exterminating all these vampires.

[00:11:28] And so once they do it, they go.

[00:11:30] They have a party.

[00:11:31] They drink.

[00:11:32] In the book version of this – this is from the book.

[00:11:36] It's very – like, they go into great detail about how they wreck all the rooms.

[00:11:40] It's very funny in the novel.

[00:11:43] Just they completely lose their shit because it's explaining that, like, they're always expecting death when they go out on these hunts.

[00:11:51] So when they accidentally – when they happen to survive, they go all out partying.

[00:11:56] And that's why they're such pieces of shit in general.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:12:00] I don't know.

[00:12:00] That sounds like cop logic to me.

[00:12:02] Like, how dangerous is their job really?

[00:12:05] They have all the guns.

[00:12:06] They've got that winch system worked out pretty well.

[00:12:08] It just feels like shock and awe, like almost like terrorism, you know?

[00:12:13] They're making the West great again.

[00:12:15] They're defending the Southwestern civilization from these degenerate queer vampires and their agenda.

[00:12:22] Yes.

[00:12:24] And, of course, they missed killing the master vampire at the first nest.

[00:12:30] And then he pays them a visit at the hotel and just rips them to fucking shreds.

[00:12:36] Hell yeah.

[00:12:36] Brutal, brutal scene.

[00:12:39] The main vampire's name is Valak, played by Thomas Ian Griffith, who is a European – oh, he's actually American.

[00:12:48] I thought he was a European.

[00:12:49] So we have a true American vampire here, even though he has a very European aesthetic, like long Trisco, very pale skin.

[00:12:59] That's acting, folks.

[00:13:00] And he just rips them to shreds.

[00:13:04] Unfortunately, in this movie – so in the novel, there's a kind of anti-capitalist reading of the vampires.

[00:13:13] Because the vampire in the novel, he's kind of like a younger, like rich kid vampire.

[00:13:20] And he has like a mansion where he keeps a bunch of shit.

[00:13:23] And you kind of learn more about him and his life.

[00:13:27] The Valak in the movie, like he sleeps in the dirt and like he rides on the train.

[00:13:31] It's like everybody in this film is kind of like a hobo drifter type.

[00:13:36] When in the novel, all the vampires are like rich, like texting assholes.

[00:13:41] Like they live like oil barons or shit like that.

[00:13:45] So when they're going around murdering all these people, like you're a lot more into it because these people are like politicians and shit.

[00:13:52] So it's kind of cool to see them murder on the vampires.

[00:13:55] But this Valak guy, like he – what we do learn about him is that like he got fucked over by the Catholic Church 500 years ago and is cursed to walk the earth eternally without ever seeing the sun.

[00:14:08] Yeah.

[00:14:09] I mean I really would have liked to get a little more backstory on Valak.

[00:14:13] He seems cool from what we know about him.

[00:14:16] Yeah.

[00:14:16] He does seem cool, badass, very powerful.

[00:14:20] But Jack Crow is able to escape him by shooting them in the head a couple of times.

[00:14:27] But with the complication that one of the sex workers that was at the party is played by Cheryl Lee of Twin Peaks fame.

[00:14:37] Holy shit, Laura Palmer.

[00:14:39] Yes, Laura Palmer in the shit again.

[00:14:42] She cannot catch a break.

[00:14:44] Her character's name is Katrina.

[00:14:47] And she's bitten by Valak and left alive.

[00:14:51] And so Jack Crow and Tony Montoya, Daniel Baldwin's character, decide to keep her around even though their plan is to eventually stake her and cut off her head.

[00:15:04] They plan to keep her around and abuse her because she'll have a psychic connection with Valak so they can use her to hunt him down.

[00:15:12] And they are completely shitty to her.

[00:15:15] Oh, yeah.

[00:15:16] I mean he calls her a whore phobic slur.

[00:15:19] I think he just calls her a whore instead of like a vampire slur.

[00:15:22] Because like once again she is first and foremost just like a woman.

[00:15:26] She's like a bitch to him, you know.

[00:15:28] Yeah, he called her a bitch several times.

[00:15:30] Like he respects vampires more than he respects women.

[00:15:33] That's the vibe I get.

[00:15:34] Yeah.

[00:15:35] It's very weird how mean they are there.

[00:15:38] But I guess what we're supposed to try to pick up from that is that, you know, Jack and Montoya, they've completely dehumanized the vampire in their mind.

[00:15:49] So once you do become a vampire, you can even say like the N word to a black vampire.

[00:15:55] But it's okay because he's a vampire now.

[00:15:57] You're not saying it to black people.

[00:15:59] You're saying it to a black vampire.

[00:16:00] So it's okay.

[00:16:01] That doesn't sound very intersectional to me.

[00:16:04] No, no.

[00:16:05] You need to, you know, carefully analyze these oppressions and the axes of oppressions these are on.

[00:16:13] And I think, you know, maybe, maybe we're still exploring this, you know, during this podcast.

[00:16:18] Maybe we'll come down on the side that maybe vampire is an oppressed class.

[00:16:23] I don't know.

[00:16:24] I mean, it certainly seems in this movie like they're very outgunned.

[00:16:29] A lot of the vampires have like intersecting identities.

[00:16:32] They're like vampires of color or whatever.

[00:16:35] So and we have we have a sex worker vampire.

[00:16:38] I wanted her to eat them and then have the rest of the movie be about her because I think some kind of vampire hooker narrative would be a lot more fun than just seeing, you know, the same old white guys staking vamps.

[00:16:52] Same old white vampire hunters.

[00:16:55] But the only problem is now is that she's not a master.

[00:17:00] She would just be a goon.

[00:17:01] So she would just be a mindless zombie beholden to, of course, the Valak who is another white guy.

[00:17:10] I feel like she's got some tricks up her sleeve, though.

[00:17:14] Or she might in a different fictional universe where this is a different movie.

[00:17:19] Yes.

[00:17:20] And so Jack Crowe has to go.

[00:17:22] This is a really good scene.

[00:17:23] Jack Crowe has to go back and decapitate the bodies of all the sex workers and all his friends in order just in case any of them were bitten by Valak.

[00:17:35] And he has to burn the hotel and it explodes in this perfect 90s walkaway explosion with narrow hip James Woods trying to look cool walking in front of it.

[00:17:47] Oh, yeah.

[00:17:48] It definitely helps that they've got the like late 90s judget music.

[00:17:53] Yes.

[00:17:54] John Carpenter, I think I'm pretty sure he probably did the soundtrack to this.

[00:17:58] And he's good.

[00:18:00] He knows what he's doing musically.

[00:18:03] I don't think he's not.

[00:18:05] What I've heard is that he doesn't really direct anymore because his eyesight has gone bad.

[00:18:11] But he still does a lot of damn music and it's all very, very good.

[00:18:16] A lot of judget.

[00:18:18] That's what I call it.

[00:18:19] The judget.

[00:18:20] And so they go and meet this big wig priest.

[00:18:26] In the novel, he actually meets the Pope.

[00:18:28] The Pope is like in direct command.

[00:18:31] Oh, man.

[00:18:32] Of the vampire hunting.

[00:18:35] That is so cool.

[00:18:36] Yeah.

[00:18:36] And they give him a new priest to hang out with since the old one got his head blown off.

[00:18:42] And he beats the shit out of the priest because the Valak, the vampire, knew Jack Crow's name.

[00:18:51] And that's not supposed to happen.

[00:18:52] He's just supposed to go.

[00:18:54] But the tables have turned.

[00:18:56] Now he's being hunted.

[00:18:57] And he doesn't like that.

[00:18:58] And he thinks there's a mole in the Catholic Church.

[00:19:02] This movie was clearly made before the internet.

[00:19:06] Yeah.

[00:19:06] Like you can just.

[00:19:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:08] Like the vampire would just like look up who are.

[00:19:11] Where are the vampire hunters?

[00:19:13] And there would be like a whole Reddit dedicated to like outing Jack Crow and talking about his travails and all the vampires he's killed.

[00:19:22] Oh, yeah.

[00:19:23] He would send him a warning on Twitter before he came to suck his blood.

[00:19:26] He would send him a DMs like you're canceled, bitch.

[00:19:30] Yeah.

[00:19:30] I mean, ever get canceled by a vampire?

[00:19:33] It's really painful.

[00:19:34] Oh, God.

[00:19:35] That's one more reason that I'm glad vampires aren't real.

[00:19:39] Or maybe I'm not.

[00:19:40] I don't know.

[00:19:41] I mean, jury's still out.

[00:19:43] Jury is out.

[00:19:44] We don't.

[00:19:44] Well, we don't know that vampires aren't real.

[00:19:47] Well, maybe the Catholic Church is this is one of the other secrets the Catholic Church is keeping from us.

[00:19:53] Yeah.

[00:19:53] I feel like if that were true, though, they they're not that good at keeping secrets and it would have come out by now.

[00:20:02] Possibly.

[00:20:03] So moving along with the plot, we have basically we find out that Valak is trying to get something called like a black crucifix, which will turn him, which will allow all vampires to walk in the sunlight.

[00:20:18] And basically make them unstoppable, because the only really effective thing in this film when it comes to killing vampires is the sunlight.

[00:20:26] Like we see in the early scene when Jack's trying to like stake one of the vampires, it takes him like a good five or six times.

[00:20:35] Have you ever tried to stake somebody directly in the heart?

[00:20:37] It's hard.

[00:20:38] I have not.

[00:20:39] It's very difficult.

[00:20:40] I'm not saying from personal experience, necessarily from personal experience, but it's, you know, getting right there on the heart.

[00:20:46] Not that easy.

[00:20:48] If all the vampires could now walk in the sunlight, daylight, travel, be, you know, fully human, they would just take over basically with all their powers and shit.

[00:20:57] So that's what he's trying to get done.

[00:20:59] And it's up to Jack Crow to try to stop him.

[00:21:01] Now, there's this really cool scene where like Valak has gathered all the master vampires and they all come up out of the dirt in like New Mexico.

[00:21:11] Like it looks so, so cool.

[00:21:13] Oh, that's badass.

[00:21:14] It's such a cool scene, such a cool image of all these bad and they are diverse.

[00:21:20] They are diverse.

[00:21:21] So I do want to give this film like credit for, you know, not just focusing on the white male vampire, which I think is overdone at this point.

[00:21:32] Yeah, fair enough.

[00:21:33] Fair enough.

[00:21:33] I'm still pretty sure it does not pass the Bechdel test.

[00:21:36] So whatever.

[00:21:37] I think you have to come up with different tests for vampires.

[00:21:41] I think you have to come up with a test where two people have a conversation that's not about vampires in the vampire film.

[00:21:47] Bechdel test.

[00:21:49] And I don't think this film passes that every time.

[00:21:52] All the humans are always talking about vampires.

[00:21:55] Always, always.

[00:21:57] Yeah.

[00:21:57] I mean, we're talking about vampires right now and we don't even live in a world ravaged by vampires as far as we know.

[00:22:03] Well, not yet.

[00:22:04] They're fascinating.

[00:22:06] And so amongst all this, we learned that Katrina bites the bald one and basically infects him with vampirism and he hides it from Jack Crow because he knows Jack Crow is going to stake him and cut off his head if he finds out.

[00:22:25] Yeah, I was like, get it, girl.

[00:22:27] Like that was obviously happening.

[00:22:29] Yeah.

[00:22:29] And they kind of fall in love.

[00:22:33] Like he goes from like abusing her and smacking her around and stripping her naked.

[00:22:39] I don't know why he stripped her naked and tired.

[00:22:41] Yeah, that part felt very gratuitous to me.

[00:22:44] I don't know why.

[00:22:45] I'm sure like there is some script expletive.

[00:22:49] Because this film is very much about the rules.

[00:22:52] He always is referencing rule number one, rule number six, rule number five.

[00:22:56] I guess rule number 12 is like if you capture a live vampire, you have to strip them naked to make sure of something or another.

[00:23:06] Yeah, sure.

[00:23:07] To make sure that there's some nudity in this movie.

[00:23:11] Yeah, some more.

[00:23:11] Because there was nudity early on, but I guess it had been like 30 minutes without nudity.

[00:23:16] So they had to.

[00:23:17] Because unfortunately, the vampires in this film are not really sexy.

[00:23:22] They're very dirty all the time.

[00:23:23] I know.

[00:23:24] They're so dirty.

[00:23:25] They're always in the dirt.

[00:23:27] So I think that might.

[00:23:28] I think we might figure it out.

[00:23:30] Like because the vampires can't be sexy.

[00:23:32] They had to have some sex somewhere else.

[00:23:36] She is such a good actress.

[00:23:37] I got to say everything I've seen her in.

[00:23:40] By which I mean this and Twin Peaks.

[00:23:42] She's very creepy.

[00:23:44] Oh, yeah.

[00:23:44] She's awesome.

[00:23:45] She's awesome.

[00:23:45] She's awesome in this.

[00:23:47] And you really don't like she's you.

[00:23:51] You do kind of root for her to bite the bald one and kill him.

[00:23:56] Fuck yeah.

[00:23:57] But then they fall in love somehow because, you know, love is violence.

[00:24:01] And the way you get a woman to fall in love with you is you handcuff her to a bed, take her clothes off, slap her in the face a few times and then say, oh, don't worry.

[00:24:12] I'm doing this to protect you.

[00:24:14] Yeah.

[00:24:14] He does say that like immediately after.

[00:24:17] Even though he's not really protecting her, he's going to his plan is to like kill her.

[00:24:21] Yeah.

[00:24:22] He doesn't really mention that.

[00:24:24] But it just seems like a kind of an unspoken understanding.

[00:24:28] And so we get some more some pretty good action scenes with them taking out a couple of master vampires in a similar nest.

[00:24:40] Master vampires, a little bit stronger than the goons, but they are still pretty good because they have the winch and all this stuff.

[00:24:47] They have that that cool thing with the elevator where he has to go down like this movie is has some scary parts in it.

[00:24:54] It's more I feel it's more action, more more of a Western than the straight up horror movie.

[00:25:00] But it does have some pretty like tense horror moments with the second with the second extermination scene, especially is pretty good with the horror.

[00:25:13] Oh, yeah.

[00:25:14] There's some boo scares in there.

[00:25:16] And so we finally get to like so this is a very this film feels like a very much of like a Hollywood movie because there is this huge it's not just about it can't just be about killing Jack, killing this one vampire.

[00:25:31] The vampire has to have a plan to take over the world, you know, and his plan is, you know, sacrifice sacrifice Jack in front of the Black Cross.

[00:25:41] And that's supposed to make all the vampires immune to sunlight.

[00:25:46] And it turns out that the priest who was in charge of the vampire hunt, of course, betrayed Jack because he wants to be an immortal vampire too.

[00:25:58] And yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:59] There's a big showdown.

[00:26:01] And Jack Crow wins by stabbing the main vampire Valak with the Black Cross.

[00:26:06] Kind of, you know, by the numbers up until the very end where we find out that the Baldwin has, you know, fully been infected because she bites him again.

[00:26:19] And they and Jack Crow kind of has to deal with this.

[00:26:22] His best friend, his teammate is a is fully infected as a vampire.

[00:26:27] The priest, the new priest wants to blow his blow away right then.

[00:26:33] But Jack Crow, you know, finally learns a little bit of a lesson, a little bit of humanity and lets his old friend go for old time's sake, allows him, you know, two days of life before he goes out and hunts him and Katrina down.

[00:26:52] And yeah, once again, he deports the vampires to Mexico.

[00:26:55] So I guess he only cares about the vampire problem in America.

[00:26:59] Yes, he literally goes to Mexico.

[00:27:01] Yeah.

[00:27:01] He is literally an ice agent.

[00:27:05] Wow.

[00:27:06] Like, you know, ice.

[00:27:08] Yeah.

[00:27:08] I think as vampire hunters as ice agents, I think that's kind of the final word on vampires.

[00:27:16] I pretty I really, you know, generally like this movie.

[00:27:20] I like the action.

[00:27:22] I like the gore.

[00:27:23] I wish the story was better.

[00:27:26] But it's still one of those movies where like if it comes on TNT at 2 a.m., I'm fucking watching it because it's kind of fun.

[00:27:35] Oh, yeah.

[00:27:36] I'm definitely going to try to make my friends watch it at some point in time.

[00:27:38] It's fucking ridiculous.

[00:27:41] Yeah.

[00:27:41] So unfortunately, it misses a lot of the themes from the novel.

[00:27:45] In the novel, spoiler alert if you haven't read it, Jack Crow himself actually gets turned into a vampire and tries to kill the Pope.

[00:27:55] What?

[00:27:56] Yes.

[00:27:57] That's so cool.

[00:27:58] Why would you not put that in the movie?

[00:28:00] I don't know.

[00:28:00] Maybe they thought there was going to be a franchise or something to.

[00:28:04] I mean, this was like right before Sinead O'Connor got in trouble for like tearing up a picture of the Pope on television.

[00:28:10] So maybe it was like too hot for the silver screen.

[00:28:14] Or I thought it was after.

[00:28:15] I thought Sinead.

[00:28:16] Was it?

[00:28:16] Yeah, I think it was.

[00:28:17] What year was that?

[00:28:18] Oh, yeah.

[00:28:19] That was six years after.

[00:28:20] So the 1982 is when she tore up the picture of the Pope.

[00:28:24] So people should have been over it by then.

[00:28:27] We should have been ready for Jack Crow as a vampire to try and assassinate the Pope, I think.

[00:28:35] Yeah.

[00:28:37] And so that was John Carpenter's vampires.

[00:28:39] Overall, I give it, for nostalgia's sake, seven fangs out of ten.

[00:28:47] Ooh.

[00:28:49] That's a pretty good score.

[00:28:50] I'll give it a six.

[00:28:51] How about that?

[00:28:52] I think that's fair.

[00:28:53] I think that's probably more accurate on the whole.

[00:28:57] It's just that there weren't a ton of bad.

[00:28:59] I feel like there weren't a ton at that point in time.

[00:29:03] Like I could not get enough badass vampire movies.

[00:29:07] So this will always have a little special place in my heart.

[00:29:10] Fair enough.

[00:29:12] All right.

[00:29:12] Moving on to Near and Dark.

[00:29:16] 1987, a movie that, you know, even vampire fans really didn't know about until, you know,

[00:29:22] there was a more of a reevaluation of it with Catherine Bigelow's success as, you know, the preeminent CIA propagandist in Hollywood, basically.

[00:29:37] Yeah.

[00:29:38] Torture is good.

[00:29:39] It always works.

[00:29:39] And we need people to do it in order for us to be safe.

[00:29:42] Yeah.

[00:29:43] I just want to say, you know, Catherine Bigelow is a fine, fine director.

[00:29:49] I think she's, you know, actually a very, very good director.

[00:29:53] And this is a very good film.

[00:29:56] It's just sad to see her go from portraying, you know, vampires as, you know, monstrous to portraying, you know, real life monsters as heroic.

[00:30:10] Yeah.

[00:30:11] I mean, I just wish that she had treated the vampires with the same level of empathy that she treated the monsters in the CIA.

[00:30:20] So Near and Dark is a very interesting film.

[00:30:23] So first of all, so the vampires in John Carpenter is a vampire.

[00:30:27] So you got the goons and you got the masters.

[00:30:30] They're pretty much follow most of the old rules.

[00:30:34] You know, they don't transform into bats because we're done with that.

[00:30:37] But they're not afraid of crosses.

[00:30:40] Stakes do work, etc., etc.

[00:30:43] They kind of they need to drink blood repeatedly.

[00:30:46] If you get bitten, you turn into a vampire.

[00:30:48] Follow those rules.

[00:30:49] The Near and Dark vampires kind of mix it up.

[00:30:52] They don't have fangs.

[00:30:53] I've seen the no fang thing a couple of times.

[00:30:56] I always prefer fangs, but I think Bigelow does a good job of making the no fang vampires still look like cool and badass and scary.

[00:31:06] Oh, yeah.

[00:31:07] These are also much sexier vampires.

[00:31:09] Yes.

[00:31:10] But maybe we can get to that in a minute.

[00:31:13] Also, they break the vampire rule where you don't change back into a human ever.

[00:31:19] Yes.

[00:31:19] What's up with that?

[00:31:20] Yes.

[00:31:21] So these are definitely fall into the realm of science vampires as opposed to supernatural vampire.

[00:31:30] John Carpenter's vampires.

[00:31:32] They're pretty fairly supernatural with some, you know, science elements.

[00:31:37] These are fully science vampires.

[00:31:40] You can go back and forth.

[00:31:41] It's like an infection of some sorts that can be cured by like a farmer with a simple transfusion.

[00:31:52] It's not that hard to cure a vampire.

[00:31:54] That still seems kind of supernatural to me.

[00:31:57] I mean, there's a supernatural element.

[00:32:00] What I mean by science versus supernatural is like it's hard to define, but it's like it's a spectrum.

[00:32:08] It's a spectrum.

[00:32:09] It's not one or the other.

[00:32:10] Like I feel like this leans more towards science as in like a blood transfusion can cure it as opposed to like an exorcism of some sort.

[00:32:21] Yeah, fair enough.

[00:32:22] So we start off with Adrian Pestar, a very good actor.

[00:32:27] He's very, very young in this.

[00:32:29] Playing Caleb Colton.

[00:32:31] He's just a good old boy from Oklahoma.

[00:32:35] I thought this took place for a while.

[00:32:37] Originally, I thought this took place like more south, but I guess Oklahoma is like this too.

[00:32:43] Like I'm from Louisiana.

[00:32:44] This could have taken place.

[00:32:46] Like I thought this was like in Beaumont, Texas.

[00:32:48] Honestly, the first time I watched it.

[00:32:51] But then I go back and I'm like, oh, it's Oklahoma.

[00:32:53] I'm like, okay.

[00:32:54] Yeah, I can't tell the difference.

[00:32:55] So I'll take your word for it.

[00:32:58] Yankees.

[00:33:00] I don't leave New York.

[00:33:01] It's fine.

[00:33:03] But he's just a good old boy having a good old time.

[00:33:06] And he sees a pretty girl across the way.

[00:33:09] She's really cute.

[00:33:11] Turns out she's a fucking vampire.

[00:33:14] And, you know, she's having a good time with him.

[00:33:17] She doesn't.

[00:33:17] So we find out.

[00:33:19] We only realize later in the film, right?

[00:33:21] That her original intention was to kill him.

[00:33:25] And at some point she changes her mind and actually just.

[00:33:30] Yeah, because he looks like fucking Jake Gyllenhaal.

[00:33:33] Because he's hot.

[00:33:35] Yeah, basically.

[00:33:36] So being hot spares life that hot privilege that he takes advantage of.

[00:33:43] But she does end up biting him just out of like hunger because they're hanging out and having such a good time.

[00:33:50] They stay out almost till sunrise.

[00:33:52] And she does bite him and kind of leaves him.

[00:33:56] And so he gets super sick and starts burning in the sun in this really like cool, creepy scene.

[00:34:04] Like he's trying to walk home and like he starts smoking while his father and his little sister look on.

[00:34:14] And then this RV with blacked out windows pulls up and takes him.

[00:34:18] And that's when our friend Caleb meets the vampire family.

[00:34:24] Which these are pure real deal purely American vampires.

[00:34:31] Half of them were in aliens.

[00:34:35] Yeah, you have Vasquez.

[00:34:38] You have Bill Paxton who plays a guy named Severin.

[00:34:43] Of course you have Bishop Lance Henriksen.

[00:34:48] What people don't realize about aliens is that Vasquez is actually brown face in that movie.

[00:34:55] Oh.

[00:34:56] Yeah.

[00:34:57] Jeanette Goldstein is the name of the actress.

[00:35:00] And she's in this film as a super cool vampire.

[00:35:03] I love her like big poofy blonde afro.

[00:35:09] Oh yeah.

[00:35:09] She's fabulous.

[00:35:11] So there's...

[00:35:12] Sorry.

[00:35:13] I thought that maybe she bit him because she wanted him to be her vampire boyfriend.

[00:35:17] But you don't think she planned that far ahead?

[00:35:19] I don't think she planned that.

[00:35:20] I think she was just having a good time.

[00:35:22] She was going to eat him.

[00:35:23] Decided not to.

[00:35:24] But then got hungry.

[00:35:25] And then was like...

[00:35:26] And then it kind of went from there.

[00:35:29] We've all been there.

[00:35:30] Yeah.

[00:35:31] And so they kind of take him along.

[00:35:33] All of them want to kill him first.

[00:35:35] They were just like...

[00:35:37] We want to just kill you.

[00:35:39] You're like a stray.

[00:35:41] Because I guess when you're a vampire family like that and you have to travel together and trust each other, you can't just let anybody in.

[00:35:48] You can't just leave all these people.

[00:35:50] All the people you drain around.

[00:35:53] You have to actually think about who's going to be with you and who's not.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:58] They're like, who's this fucking pretty boy?

[00:36:00] He's so annoying.

[00:36:01] He won't even kill people?

[00:36:02] Like useless.

[00:36:03] Yeah.

[00:36:04] It's a band of outlaws.

[00:36:05] The creepiest...

[00:36:06] It's like Louie all over again.

[00:36:08] The creepiest one is Homer, played by Joshua John Miller, who's the little kid vampire.

[00:36:17] Super creepy.

[00:36:18] We talked about Claudia from Interview with the Vampire on our last episode.

[00:36:23] I think Homer is creepier.

[00:36:25] And I think part of it is that he's a little boy on the outside.

[00:36:29] Like I think there's some...

[00:36:30] It's very like a little girl vampire is very creepy.

[00:36:34] But I think a little boy vampire is even creepier.

[00:36:37] Really?

[00:36:38] I think they're equally creepy.

[00:36:40] I don't know.

[00:36:40] He really...

[00:36:41] I was like, is that the actor who plays little Pete on Pete and Pete?

[00:36:44] But he was a different actor.

[00:36:47] He has that look about him though.

[00:36:49] Yeah.

[00:36:50] And so he is a little bit tortured.

[00:36:53] Most of the vampires in here seem to be having a good time besides the fact that they don't have any money and they don't have a home and they have to drift and steal and rob to live.

[00:37:06] Like the only thing that bothers them really is like capitalism, not vampirism.

[00:37:12] Yeah.

[00:37:13] The 70s fiscal crisis has not been kind to this gang of vampires.

[00:37:18] And as we all know, you know, the recovery did not happen for everyone.

[00:37:22] Yes.

[00:37:23] It does make me think like...

[00:37:25] So we...

[00:37:27] Jesse Hooker, the father of the family, mentions at one point that he fought for the South in the Civil War.

[00:37:36] Oh, yeah.

[00:37:36] In this really cool scene.

[00:37:38] Like so all that time you never bought any like U.S. saving bonds, you know?

[00:37:44] Like back then, like you could get away with like portraying yourself as like your son and then your grandson and no one would ask questions.

[00:37:54] You just show up into town once every 30 years.

[00:37:57] Oh, yes.

[00:37:58] I'm Jesse Jr.

[00:37:59] I'm Jesse the third and collect your savings.

[00:38:02] I don't know.

[00:38:03] I feel like what they really needed was some long term financial planning, which you can do if you're a vampire.

[00:38:12] Yeah.

[00:38:12] I mean, he's really only got himself to blame.

[00:38:15] He's just like almost the stereotype of like a dumb hick who fought for the Confederacy.

[00:38:22] Offensive, really.

[00:38:23] Yes.

[00:38:24] But I...

[00:38:25] They are like cool.

[00:38:27] They're like...

[00:38:28] They're not as dirty as the vampires and vampires, but almost.

[00:38:31] But they're like gutter punk meets rockabilly kind of vampires.

[00:38:37] And like...

[00:38:38] The 80s were the golden age of that.

[00:38:40] Yeah.

[00:38:40] And they're all like, you know, super cool, really badass.

[00:38:44] All have this huge swagger that Caleb does not have.

[00:38:49] He's like a cowboy, but like a nerd-ass cowboy.

[00:38:54] Yeah.

[00:38:55] I also noticed that vampires seem to be able to drink and smoke in this movie, which is different than the usual vampire rules.

[00:39:01] Yes.

[00:39:01] I don't think they eat, but they do drink and smoke, which are, of course, very, very cool.

[00:39:07] Oh, yeah.

[00:39:08] I don't make the cool rules.

[00:39:10] I just know them.

[00:39:11] And drinking and smoking are pretty cool.

[00:39:13] Yeah.

[00:39:13] Especially when it's attractive people doing it.

[00:39:15] Yes.

[00:39:16] And so we see, you know, they, you know, go on the run, burn their RV and just kind of kidnap Caleb and drag him around.

[00:39:26] And we see these scenes of their nightly rituals where they go around and kill people for their blood.

[00:39:34] And it's actually like really like hard to watch.

[00:39:37] Like you really don't like them because like one of the people they kill, like Bill Paxton Severin, his name is character.

[00:39:46] He kills Robin Givens.

[00:39:48] We don't see it, but it's implied like May, who's the female lead, kills like this black trucker who's like really nice and endearing.

[00:40:00] Like they're all.

[00:40:00] Oh, yeah.

[00:40:01] They're all like the Homer pretends to be hurt.

[00:40:04] And this good Samaritan comes to try to help him and he kills him.

[00:40:08] And it's like you realize that they do this every single night across the country.

[00:40:13] It's like a band of serial killers driving around the country.

[00:40:18] Oh, yeah.

[00:40:19] They take advantage of people's kindness.

[00:40:21] They don't go after the bad people ever.

[00:40:23] Like I think in interview with a vampire, at least they kill some like decadent aristocrats or whatever.

[00:40:30] It must have made the Confederate guy even angrier that Caleb didn't want to kill the only black guy in this movie.

[00:40:37] Yeah.

[00:40:38] Like, like, like, and then May are, you know, heroin does.

[00:40:44] Like these vampires are, these are not nice vampires at all.

[00:40:48] No, I mean, being a vampire isn't nice though.

[00:40:51] So May, so Caleb, he's really conflicted and he will only drink May's blood, which, you know, is kind of a losing proposition because she has to kill someone.

[00:41:02] And then he just takes all her blood from her.

[00:41:05] And it doesn't really, it's not really beneficial.

[00:41:09] Yeah, that's kind of a bitch move.

[00:41:11] Like Severin was right about that.

[00:41:12] It's not sustainable at all.

[00:41:16] So, you know, Caleb's still conflicted.

[00:41:18] He doesn't want to, he's not a killer.

[00:41:19] He doesn't want to kill people, but May still likes him.

[00:41:21] So she keeps him around.

[00:41:23] In the meantime, we find out that, you know, Caleb's father is going around looking for him, trying to find his son.

[00:41:33] More on that later.

[00:41:35] But then we get a really, you know, the scenes that these, this film is really known for first, when they come up on the hill and the light is shining behind them.

[00:41:47] It's the most, one of the best vampire shots in any film ever.

[00:41:53] So even if they don't have fangs, they have all the fucking cool as vampire shit going on for them.

[00:41:59] And then they come to the bar and this fucking scene is amazing.

[00:42:05] That's pretty good.

[00:42:07] I was wondering if this was the inspiration for, from Dusk Till Dawn, because that's a similar kind of bar invasion monster movie.

[00:42:16] Yeah, like that's like the whole, like whole vampire part of the movie is this, but Catherine Bigelow manages to do it in five minutes.

[00:42:24] It wouldn't surprise me if, uh, Quentin Tarantino decided to steal that.

[00:42:28] I mean, cause, I mean, that is what he does.

[00:42:30] I love Quentin Tarantino, but like everything he does is just like remixing other people's shit.

[00:42:35] It's good though.

[00:42:36] Pastiche.

[00:42:37] He's a, he's a high artist of pastiche.

[00:42:40] Yes.

[00:42:41] And so they walk into the bar, um, they start shit, uh, with the locals who are like, it's not, I don't even think they make the locals look like assholes.

[00:42:50] The locals aren't like, what the fuck are you doing at our bar?

[00:42:54] Leave us alone.

[00:42:55] We're just trying to get drunk.

[00:42:57] Like, like the one guy is even like very, like the guy who's like drink, um, Paxton knocks over is like actually forgiving of him because he's like not trying to start a fight.

[00:43:08] He's like, Hey, what the fuck, man?

[00:43:10] And then Paxton says, buy him in the, says he'll buy him another round.

[00:43:13] He's like, okay, that's cool.

[00:43:14] And then Paxton says, fuck you.

[00:43:16] I'm not paying for it.

[00:43:17] And then Paxton just makes a joke and he's like, okay, whatever guy.

[00:43:21] Like, it's just like, they're such assholes to these people who generally seem pretty nice.

[00:43:28] Like, I, I feel like, you know, Bigelow did a really interesting thing here because you, because, you know, in, uh, John Carpenter's vampires, they showed the monster, how monstrous the vampires were with just, you know, their brutal violence.

[00:43:42] But in this film, it's more like they're just, you know, interpersonal stuff.

[00:43:49] Yeah.

[00:43:49] They're dicks.

[00:43:50] Yeah.

[00:43:50] They're not just violent murderers.

[00:43:53] They're dicks as well.

[00:43:54] Yeah.

[00:43:54] It's like the microaggressions.

[00:43:56] They're the vampires of microaggressions.

[00:43:58] To add insult to injury.

[00:44:00] Yes.

[00:44:00] And pretty soon after that, you get the scene where they, um, slit the wait, the pretty waitress's throat and pour her blood into a glass.

[00:44:13] Absolutely fucking brutal.

[00:44:15] And then they start, you know, taking out, um, the rest of the bar.

[00:44:21] Um, really.

[00:44:22] And thus Bill Paxton is just on one right now.

[00:44:27] He's on one, two, three, four, five in this one.

[00:44:29] He is having such a good time, uh, playing his character.

[00:44:34] Um, just kicking the shit out of people, literally kick, uh, slices a man's neck open with his spurs.

[00:44:41] Um, uh, drinks the blood, has the blood draining down his face.

[00:44:45] Um, everybody has seen the image of Bill Paxton holding the shotgun, uh, with, with the bloody mouth from this film.

[00:44:53] He's never looked cooler.

[00:44:55] Bill Paxton is usually not the cool guy, but he is fucking cool in this.

[00:44:59] Yeah.

[00:45:00] He looks pretty cool.

[00:45:01] The whole thing.

[00:45:02] Ugh.

[00:45:02] I, I might even have to rewatch that scene now.

[00:45:05] Cause it was, you're right.

[00:45:06] It was a really cool, gory scene.

[00:45:08] You also felt bad for the humans who were being terrorized by vampires.

[00:45:12] People are way too nice in the, this is the Midwest.

[00:45:15] Right.

[00:45:15] Not the South.

[00:45:17] Right.

[00:45:17] People are way too nice in both places.

[00:45:20] Yes.

[00:45:20] Actually.

[00:45:20] Like they'd like first thing they should have just like called the police or shot them or something.

[00:45:26] Although the shotgun's not too effective against these vampires.

[00:45:29] I, I was kind of surprised.

[00:45:30] I feel like the guns are more effective against the vampires in John Carpenter's film than in this one.

[00:45:36] They are like, they can literally eat bullets, uh, in this film.

[00:45:41] Like they're kind of almost invincible.

[00:45:43] It seems aside from, uh, sunlight, but yeah.

[00:45:47] Yeah.

[00:45:48] I'm kind of impressed that in both worlds, people don't seem to know that vampires exist.

[00:45:53] Yes.

[00:45:54] Cause they're just like cutting a bloody swath through this small town.

[00:45:57] Like you think that people would figure it out.

[00:46:00] Well, here's the thing, of course.

[00:46:02] Um, so like what, I think what Bigelow does kind of subtly is, um, as I said earlier, kind

[00:46:07] of makes them like drift their serial killers.

[00:46:09] And if anybody knows, if you follow true crime, you know, the most dangerous kind of serial

[00:46:15] killer is like the serial killer.

[00:46:17] Who's like a trucker or who drives all across the country.

[00:46:20] Because as long as you never like stay in the same place, uh, you can kill as many people

[00:46:26] as you want basically.

[00:46:27] Um, and the cops will never catch up to you just cause they're not that good or that smart.

[00:46:32] I guess not in 1987, you know, they have, they have that shootout with the cops at a motel

[00:46:38] and then they just drive to a different motel that like doesn't even seem like it's that

[00:46:42] far away.

[00:46:43] And it's like, Oh, I guess we got away from the cops.

[00:46:45] And that shootout scene is very, very, uh, good.

[00:46:48] I think, I think it's pretty good.

[00:46:50] Like Catherine Bigelow knows how to do like really good action.

[00:46:53] Like when it starts there, all the vampires are like super scared because it's sunlight

[00:46:58] is daylight is like their, their fuck.

[00:47:01] They like start screaming.

[00:47:02] Like, Holy shit.

[00:47:02] We're being attacked by, uh, during daylight.

[00:47:05] Like, and you kind of realize like this is their worst nightmare happening.

[00:47:10] But Caleb, uh, finally, you know, uh, grow, uh, decides to, you know, vamp up, uh, grow

[00:47:18] some fangs.

[00:47:19] Uncuck himself.

[00:47:19] He grows a pair of fangs and like starts shooting at the cops.

[00:47:23] Like all this movie, I don't want to kill anybody.

[00:47:26] As soon as he sees some cops, he starts blasting away.

[00:47:29] Well, maybe he just didn't want to kill good people.

[00:47:31] Yes.

[00:47:32] And so he's able to grab the van and rescue and drive it through the hotel in order to,

[00:47:37] um, rescue them.

[00:47:39] I actually don't know if they actually met, did they kill any cops?

[00:47:42] I feel like they didn't really manage to kill any of.

[00:47:46] I don't know.

[00:47:46] I think they just shot at them a lot.

[00:47:48] Yeah.

[00:47:48] They mostly, mostly just a shootout, uh, no real casualties, but Caleb, uh, kind of proves

[00:47:54] himself that he's, you know, one of them because he was able to rescue them.

[00:47:59] And, um, actually, um, severing gives, uh, Caleb one of his spurs, you know, show you

[00:48:05] you're part of the family.

[00:48:06] And then the love story between, uh, Caleb and me continues.

[00:48:10] He kind of feels like maybe I can, you know, keep doing this.

[00:48:13] Maybe I can be a part of this until creepy little Homer spots, uh, Caleb's sister at

[00:48:21] the new hotel that they're staying at.

[00:48:25] And this is where, you know, things kind of turn, uh, take a really weird turn because

[00:48:30] the vibes from Homer or towards that little girl are so fucking creepy.

[00:48:36] Oh yeah.

[00:48:37] All I could think of when he started to creep on her was I am evil Homer.

[00:48:43] I am evil Homer.

[00:48:45] So that's a Simpsons reference for the real heads out there.

[00:48:49] Yeah.

[00:48:49] And so, you know, Caleb's father, um, had happened to be staying at the hotel cause he

[00:48:54] was, uh, looking for them.

[00:48:56] And then now Caleb kind of has to choose between his new family and his old family because his

[00:49:01] new family, uh, wants to kill his old family.

[00:49:04] I think in that moment they could have just said, all right, look, this is all, this is

[00:49:09] very awkward for both of us.

[00:49:11] We're vampires.

[00:49:13] Your son's a vampire.

[00:49:14] Now I, we usually don't do this, but we'll let you go and let you live.

[00:49:18] And they're like, and they're just like, no, they don't do that for some reason, which is

[00:49:23] really like, just shows like how kind of shitty they are.

[00:49:27] They're bad.

[00:49:28] They're bad vampires.

[00:49:29] They're bad people.

[00:49:30] They were probably bad people before they were vampires.

[00:49:32] Like, I don't want to paint all vampires with the same brush here.

[00:49:35] Just cause the ones, some of the ones in this movie are huge, huge assholes.

[00:49:40] Right?

[00:49:41] Yeah.

[00:49:41] It just, it seems like all of them kind of be bad even without the vampires.

[00:49:46] And like, none of them, like they have, they're interesting.

[00:49:49] They're fun.

[00:49:50] They care about each other.

[00:49:52] They have some redeeming qualities, but you get the feeling that like, uh, ultimately they're

[00:49:58] all pieces of shit or maybe, maybe it was the vampire risen attorney.

[00:50:02] Maybe it's the night after night killing people that does it like the having to kill people

[00:50:08] to survive, turning people into food.

[00:50:11] They, they no longer care.

[00:50:12] They no longer have those real human bonds that you expect.

[00:50:16] Even Homer, he says he wants to take the little girl in order to get revenge on May for bringing Caleb in.

[00:50:25] It's like he, even he has resentment towards other vampires.

[00:50:30] Yeah.

[00:50:30] Well, I guess we've found another parallel with Zero Dark Thirty.

[00:50:35] All right.

[00:50:36] And so didn't we get to the cure scene?

[00:50:39] The really kind of easy, convenient cure where Caleb's father just gives him a blood transfusion

[00:50:45] and he's no longer a vampire.

[00:50:47] How convenient.

[00:50:49] How also, how convenient that he had like the equipment to do that in a shed behind his house.

[00:50:56] Yeah.

[00:50:56] Well, I guess he does have a farm, but it's just like, was he waiting for this moment?

[00:51:02] Maybe they do know that vampires exist in this world.

[00:51:05] I don't know.

[00:51:05] He seemed like he knew just what to do.

[00:51:07] Also, like one thing I wanted to bring up is that they don't seem to have any sense of themselves

[00:51:12] as vampires per se.

[00:51:14] Like, I don't think they ever say the word.

[00:51:16] No, I don't think vampires never other in this film, which is one way to do it to kind

[00:51:22] of make it more.

[00:51:23] I guess it's supposed to be a more realistic take.

[00:51:25] That's why they don't have fangs.

[00:51:29] For example, there's no running scared of crosses or anything.

[00:51:33] Not changing the bats.

[00:51:34] No mist.

[00:51:35] No wolves.

[00:51:36] Just, you know, some good.

[00:51:37] Fine.

[00:51:38] Just good old fashioned American shithead rockabilly vampires.

[00:51:44] Yeah, that sounds about right.

[00:51:46] For America.

[00:51:47] Yes.

[00:51:48] And we think everything's okay.

[00:51:51] Kayla's back home.

[00:51:52] He apparently forgot that all the vampires know where he lives.

[00:51:56] Yes.

[00:51:58] Like, exactly.

[00:51:59] Because they pulled up in the first five minutes of the film and saw his house.

[00:52:04] Well, when you look like that, you don't really have to be smart.

[00:52:06] And so May comes to see him and then all the other vampires are with her, of course.

[00:52:13] And they try to kidnap his little sister again.

[00:52:19] And there's this big action packed showdown that involves Caleb driving a semi into Bill

[00:52:29] Paxton.

[00:52:30] Oh, and before that, he rides a fucking horse.

[00:52:33] Oh, yeah.

[00:52:34] That is pretty cool.

[00:52:34] He does ride the horse.

[00:52:35] I never knew.

[00:52:37] I never thought that I wanted to see a vampire ride a horse until it happened.

[00:52:42] And now it's all I want to see.

[00:52:44] It is a really like, like, it's, you know, hitting you overhead that this is a Western

[00:52:49] because he goes into the middle of town.

[00:52:53] It's not high noon, but like, it's the exact same shot you would see.

[00:52:57] There's like a false front stores outlying the street and he rides the horse and a tub of

[00:53:04] wheat rolls past him to have this big showdown with Bill Paxton, which he wins by driving

[00:53:11] an 18 wheeler into him, which you do in the Western.

[00:53:15] Hell yeah.

[00:53:17] Yeah.

[00:53:17] Yeah.

[00:53:17] I have a friend who really only likes guys who look like goth cowboys.

[00:53:22] So I think this movie is going to be a real turn on for her.

[00:53:26] And so he managed to kill him in the explosion, the 18 wheeler.

[00:53:31] And then I have to say that these vampires, they're not terribly bright.

[00:53:37] I feel like six vampires could take out one cowboy if they were coordinated, but they're

[00:53:43] not.

[00:53:44] They timed their kidnapping so badly.

[00:53:46] Yes.

[00:53:47] Like it's right before sunrise when they're trying to pull all this, pull all this shit

[00:53:53] off and they end up all burning to death.

[00:53:56] You're like 200 years old.

[00:53:58] Like, how do you not know by now what time the sun comes up and that you need to avoid

[00:54:02] it?

[00:54:03] Like there was more important things to do.

[00:54:05] Like you could come back the next night if you felt like it, like you can't, the cops

[00:54:09] can't, you know, touch you.

[00:54:11] Like, I feel like, you know, you've been around for 200 years.

[00:54:15] You know, I almost though in that, those last scenes, I feel like they kind of wanted to

[00:54:20] die.

[00:54:21] That's kind of it.

[00:54:22] Cause Homer like gets out of the car and runs after the little girl when he doesn't really

[00:54:27] have to, um, and burns alive.

[00:54:30] And then you just kind of get the feel, the look on the Lance Henderson's face is like,

[00:54:36] all right, I guess it's time, um, to go out.

[00:54:39] Maybe he's just a dumb kid.

[00:54:42] Kids do dumb shit all the time.

[00:54:43] But he's not a kid.

[00:54:44] And their parents have to stop them.

[00:54:46] But he's not a kid.

[00:54:46] He's been living for, you know, decades.

[00:54:51] Well, you know, they say that you stop maturing at the age that you are turned into a vampire.

[00:54:56] So maybe that's what's up with him.

[00:54:59] Who knows?

[00:55:00] And then, you know, to put a pin on it, Caleb, uh, cures May of her vampirism.

[00:55:05] And now they get to be together and in love and not vampires anymore.

[00:55:09] How very fucking convenient and adorable.

[00:55:13] The ending was so lame.

[00:55:14] I gotta say like also, okay, there's a few sketchy things around consent in this movie.

[00:55:22] I mean, nevermind all of the people that do not consent to be killed and have their blood

[00:55:26] drank by the vampires.

[00:55:27] But like, uh, he didn't ask her if she wanted to be turned back into a human.

[00:55:32] He just fucking went ahead with it and did it.

[00:55:35] And like, kind of, kind of, uh, parallels the first scene or the early scene where she's

[00:55:40] like, I need you to take me home right now.

[00:55:42] And he's like, oh, I'll only take you home if you kiss me.

[00:55:44] Ha ha.

[00:55:45] Like, uh, I guess that was, that was cute in 1987.

[00:55:48] But now I'm like, whoa, dude.

[00:55:50] Yeah.

[00:55:51] This was considered like, uh, it was kind of marketed as a horror, but people like also

[00:55:59] talked about it as kind of like a teen romance too.

[00:56:03] I didn't really, you know, get the romantic vibe that much from it.

[00:56:07] Cause I, I wasn't too into, I was more, I was into Caleb.

[00:56:11] I didn't really think their relationship was like, has strong foundation to it.

[00:56:15] It was mostly based on lies and biting each other.

[00:56:18] Um, so I really didn't take the romance seriously, but when my wife saw me watching it, she started

[00:56:24] comparing it to, uh, Twilight and, um, as much as I despise Twilight, I guess there is

[00:56:32] something to it because they were going to remake this film and decided not to because

[00:56:36] Twilight had blown up and they thought that people would think they were copying Twilight.

[00:56:41] Yeah.

[00:56:42] It's like an early example of human vampire romance, I guess, that has a happy ending,

[00:56:47] weirdly enough.

[00:56:48] Yeah.

[00:56:49] The happy, it just, it's very pat, um, the ending.

[00:56:52] Like we don't have to worry about all those people that may murdered, including that black

[00:56:57] trucker, like a day ago.

[00:57:00] Um, everything's just turns out fine.

[00:57:02] We don't worry about May's family or she wants to go back to them.

[00:57:06] I guess she's just going to live in Oklahoma now and marry Caleb and that's all, it's all

[00:57:11] done.

[00:57:12] She, she is a cute young white woman in Oklahoma.

[00:57:15] I'm sure the cops will not come after her.

[00:57:18] And that was a near dark.

[00:57:20] I have to say, you know, I really liked this movie besides the ending.

[00:57:25] I think, I think not just like the pateness of it, but I think the action scenes at the

[00:57:30] end really don't make a lot of sense.

[00:57:33] Even the truck explosion, even though it looks really cool, it doesn't like seem to, it doesn't

[00:57:38] seem to make any sense.

[00:57:39] It's like why the truck would explode at that moment in that way, even though the, but you're

[00:57:44] not, you don't pay attention to it because the makeup job on Bill Paxton is so good when

[00:57:47] he's all burnt up and shit.

[00:57:50] I just figured that I wasn't paying attention for some like crucial plot point that would

[00:57:54] tell me why the truck was on fire.

[00:57:56] It just, it literally just explodes.

[00:57:59] Just, just explodes just because.

[00:58:02] Well, maybe it had faulty wiring.

[00:58:05] We don't know.

[00:58:06] But, um, so I, I do really like this film.

[00:58:09] I think it's a really good film.

[00:58:11] I think that bar scene is just like all the time.

[00:58:14] It's very cool.

[00:58:16] The music is also very cool.

[00:58:18] I must say.

[00:58:19] Tangerine Dream does a really fantastic job at this.

[00:58:22] Cool.

[00:58:22] As someone who loves synths and the eighties, I will give the music two thumbs up.

[00:58:27] Yes.

[00:58:28] So how many fangs of the tin?

[00:58:31] Oh, how many fangs?

[00:58:32] Oh, I'll give this one.

[00:58:33] I want to leave some room for improvement because like there's so many vampire movies I haven't

[00:58:37] seen yet.

[00:58:38] So I'll give it a seven.

[00:58:40] I think I'm going to give it, I think I'm going to give it a 7.5.

[00:58:43] Seven and a half fangs out of 10.

[00:58:46] All right.

[00:58:47] I think it's a little bit better than vampires, even though I probably like vampires more ultimately

[00:58:52] because I saw it when I was, you know, coming of age into my obsession with vampirism when

[00:58:58] I, while I saw New Dark, you know, as a fully mature vampire nerd.

[00:59:04] Yeah, that's fair.

[00:59:06] I'm always going to like a vampire movie more if the vampires are cool and sexy and have some

[00:59:11] sort of tortured inner life.

[00:59:13] Um, I guess there needs to be like a whiny Louie one.

[00:59:18] And also, you know, the cool, uh, bad, bad people vampires in this movie had all of those

[00:59:25] things and more and attractive people making out.

[00:59:28] So.

[00:59:28] Yeah.

[00:59:28] I have to say like Bill Paxton Severin is just one of the coolest vampires of all time.

[00:59:33] Like, like he just own completely owns this role.

[00:59:37] Um, I wish like we could get like a prequel with him or something like that.

[00:59:42] Oh yeah.

[00:59:43] We'll get a prequel to see what he was up to like during the seventies on, on the, on the

[00:59:49] punk scene.

[00:59:49] Like I want to see him.

[00:59:51] See you next time.

[00:59:52] Pistols or whatever.

[00:59:54] Uh, yeah.

[00:59:55] Same.

[00:59:57] Unfortunately, it's never to be.

[01:00:00] Hey, we don't know that whoever was going to remake it.

[01:00:03] Maybe we could convince them that it's still a good idea, but they should make it about

[01:00:07] him.

[01:00:07] Yeah.

[01:00:08] But they have to, but there's no Bill Paxton, unfortunately.

[01:00:12] Right.

[01:00:13] RIP.

[01:00:14] That's sad.

[01:00:16] All right, folks.

[01:00:18] That was our today's vampire castle.

[01:00:22] So we're going to be keep doing the show probably on a monthly basis, right?

[01:00:26] Yeah.

[01:00:26] Let's do it.

[01:00:27] We're going to go through all the good vampire stuff.

[01:00:29] We're going to talk about all the vampire stuff, but why don't you tell us, you know,

[01:00:33] what, what's, what's some cool vampire stuff?

[01:00:35] Not just movies, music, video games.

[01:00:37] Jamie, you told me you played, you did play vampire the masquerade.

[01:00:42] Okay.

[01:00:42] So I'm going to be honest and say that this was actually a mixed campaign containing people

[01:00:50] playing as vampires, as well as people playing as changelings and mages.

[01:00:55] And I don't remember why I didn't get to be a vampire in this, but I was a changeling,

[01:01:02] but I am familiar with the game.

[01:01:04] I was kind of on the bottom of the pecking order, even among like the theater losers.

[01:01:08] So it's possible that they made me be a changeling.

[01:01:11] Oh, that's so fucked up.

[01:01:13] Like, I hate to see bullying like that, you know, not letting you be a vampire.

[01:01:17] It's awful.

[01:01:18] Yeah.

[01:01:18] Yeah.

[01:01:19] You hate to see it.

[01:01:20] But you can, we have a Twitter account now.

[01:01:23] It's just a vamp castle pod.

[01:01:25] And you can also contact us on Gmail at the, uh, the vampire castle at gmail.com.

[01:01:33] The vampire castle is in the only one.

[01:01:36] The only one that matters.

[01:01:38] The only one that counts.

[01:01:39] All right, folks.