2.5/4  Flawed but still interesting to watch
I enjoyed watching this movie, but I did feel that it wasn't as good as Lost Boys. Near Dark was more thought-provoking than Lost Boys, but had so many holes that I had trouble just enjoying it for what it was... an 80's vampire flick. The... (read full)

3.5/4  Forget The Lost Boys
This is the essential 80's vampire movie. Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red manage to create a unique story of a "family" of vampires and make it into a road movie. Strong performances all around, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton obviously havin... (read full)

5/5 Don't Let the Cover Fool You
  by Jason Sum (IL, USA)
The 1980's was the Decade of some great Films
5 Movies of the 80's Changed the vampire genre and brought new Life/Twist into the Mythology
(Fright Night, The Hunger, The Lost Boys, Near Dark & Vamp)

Thankfully 2 of the 5 Films have been Transferred to the HD Format

A Film like Near Dark was made for HD
Kathryn Bigelow was Behind A Film that was Decades a-head of the time.
At the time was Over-Looked due in fact It was Released around the same time as Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys
But, since then has Gained a Cult Status in the Leagues of Any Romero, Carpenter, and Coscarelli Film!

With A Dream Cast of Vampires
Lance Henriksen,
Bill Paxton,
Jenette Goldstein
The 3 Bring So much to the Film and are such rounded Charters you actually Hate to see Them Die
The 3 were also in a Little Film called Aliens
A young Adrian Pasdar (Pre Heroes)

I Highly Recommend This BR
The PQ is 5 Star along with a True DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

Lionsgate/Studio Canal put allot into the HD Transfer
w/ all The extras from the Previous Anchor Bay SD DVD
This Film is a Must have for all Horror/Vampire Fans who wanna see How A Real Vampire movie Should look like in Stunning HD
A Masterpiece 10/10


2/5 Not worth it
  by Angelface (Virginia)
I bought this Blu-Ray at Walmart for $10, but the movie wasn't even worth that. It was a silly wanna be Vampire movie, they made better ones than this in the 80's so you can't blame it on the time. I love Vampire movies and usually even like the cheesy ones, but this one wasn't even cheesy.

4/5 Blu-ray Review.
  by S. Ryan (Somewhere in South Western Virginia)
I'm not going to explain the movie, alot of other people have already done that better than I ever could. I am though going to tell you if the blu-ray version is better than the standard def release. The visual and audio quality of the blu-ray version of Near Dark is definitely a major improvement over its standard def counterpart. Their is also a few problems for example the only special features are a audio commentary, the living in darkness documentary, one deleted scene with commentary, and two theatrical trailers aswell as two English subtitles and one Spanish. All of the bonus material is in standard definition.

The problem I have with the collection is with the special features. Since I had the Anchor Bay two disc edition from back in 2002. So I had hoped they would have added additional content, especially considering on the back of the box it says "deleted scenes" which to me implies more than one or maybe a new commentary with Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein and Adrian Pasdar since they all seem to have fond memories of the movie. At first when you watch the movie where the mosquito scene is at the movie looks a little like the dvd edition then after that it clears up noticeably. Skin tones are spot on crimson reds almost pop off the screen, and all things considered this movie looks incredible for its age and the fact it had a small budget. On the audio side the film has an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio which can rattle the floors and other things if you have a good audio set up, an English 2.0 PCM Audio which is ok but even if you don't have surround sound use the DTS audio it still sounds better, finally the last Audio is a commentary with just Katherine Bigelow.

When it comes to the box art the individual who came up with the twilight cover should be smacked upside the head for creating such terrible art. I'll end this review by saying if you want the upgrade by all means buy it just don't expect alot of additional content because you will be disappointed, if you haven't seen it and have a blu-ray player this is the best version to get since this movie looks and sounds alot better than it ever has. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the movie.

5/5 Blue-Ray Review
  by At Home Dad (NJ)
I'm not going to reveal the content of this film in my review. Suffice it to say, it is a good twist on an old genre and is worth watching. Slightly on the gory side, but not over the top. I saw it on HBO shortly after its release in 1987.

This is an absolutely gorgeous Blu-Ray transfer. Images were clear and sharp. Even with all of the night scenes, I did not notice any significant artifacting. Unless you read the case, you would not know this film was made in 1987. And, the photographic quality of this film is amazing for something that was made with a budget of only $5 million. They definitely put time and effort into the transfer and it shows.

I would highly recommend adding this Blu-Ray edition to your library.

Now, if the rest of the studios out there would just make all of their transfers this good....

5/5 The vampire western that is *not* Twilight
  by J. Burgos (West Hollywood, CA United States)
Yeah, people will see the cover of the new Blu-Ray release of the 1987 cult vampire western and invariably draw comparisons to Twilight. It's not. This is a new cleaned up, HD 1080 re-release of Near Dark. It does not contain as many features as the 2002 DVD release, but it does have:

Commentary with Katheryn Bigelow
Living in Darkness: Making of Near Dark documentary (47 minutes long)
Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Bigelow
Trailers
Widescreen
5.1 DTS-HD

I dont own the original 2002 DVD release, but based on comparisons this has much crisper sound and picture than the original, so I have purchased this one. Shop around for best price (although Amazon has the second lowest price available right now, next to Wal-Mart).