Near Dark reimagines the vampire film as a kind of modern day Western, replacing the outlaw gunslinger gangs so iconic to the genre with an itinerant band of predatory vampires prowling the edges of the rural heartland. Like many of the darker characters in Bigelow’s cinema, these bloodsucking outlaws are both repellent and undeniably attractive, expressions of the vexed choice between law and anarchy posed as a central dilemma in Bigelow’s films. Making evocative use of its Arizona locations, the insouciant punk eroticism of Bigelow’s cult classic is tempered by a somberly starker vision of the desolate West, beautifully captured by the crepuscular cinematography of Adam Greenberg (The Big Red One, 1980).