The Fiesta 13 1980’s Horror Movie OctoVember Challenge #13: Near Dark (1987) (Criterion)

62 1980’s Horror Movies in 62 Days.

Hillbilly vampires take in a new recruit who does nothing but sabotage the tribe.

We saw this back in the ’80’s and remembered liking it. So, we decided to show the movie for friends. Upon revisit, Near Dark doesn’t really hold up. The best sequence, the bar scene, is still pretty great. However, a stupid, bloated Hollywood ending and an unsympathetic lead who does stupid things hamstring the rest of the film. Is Lance Henrickson still awesome? Yes. And does scene stealer Bill Paxton make every movie he’s in better? Sure. But, the rest of the movie can’t support these shining stars.

The Fiesta 13 1980’s Horror Movie OctoVember Challenge, by its very nature, wallows in nostalgia and the main goal of the challenge is to find movies worth seeing, first, and to showcase lesser classics, second.

We failed on the second count. We’re a culture that prefers to look back in comfort than press forward in discovery. Nostalgia, at the end of the day, generally just adds up to circle jerk. And as we reassess our cultural touchstones here at The Fiesta 13, we guess, stuff’s gotta go. Tastes change.

Anywhoozle, Near Dark. Less than the whole of its parts.

The Trailer:

Another added note: As The Challenge grinds on, we’re having trouble finishing many of the movies we’re starting as they are often the worst thing a movie can be: boring. We’re looking at you Hard Rock Zombie. How do you make Heavy Metal, Zombies and Nazi’s boring? I want to finish it just because we’ve made some pretty awesome graphics.

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The Fiesta 13 1980’s Horror Movie OctoVember Challenge #12: Black Roses (1989) (Shudder)

62 1980’s Horror Movies in 62 Days.

Tipper Gore was right. Middle of the road, bland, corporate heavy metal causes high school students to commit atrocities.

One of the ’80’s subgenres of horror that I didn’t see a lot of at the time was the whole “Heavy Metal is satanic” series of movies. Not really a fan of mediocre heavy metal, but let’s try and rectify that horror hole with a few movies.

Hard to know who’s the hero of this movie is as they follow roughly 20 characters at the beginning. A heavy metal band, Black Roses, is starting their tour in a generic midwestern town (really, Canada). They are tools of Satan. Eventually, the sympathetic English teacher emerges as the one to throw gasoline on Satan and save the kids.

The movie begins slow, but if you start with the death of Big Pussy from The Sopranos (his first role) about a half hour in, the rest of the movie picks up with random killings by heavy metal obsessed ‘young adults’ at a fairly even clip. The effects are fun, in the rubber-puppet variety, and while the metal is pretty forgettable, the movie does go out of its way to compare Walt Whitman and today’s crappy metal.

One thing we did not know: Metal bands write Power Ballads primarily to show adults their music is palatable and not, repeat not, the music of Satan.

‘Effin’ Tipper Gore.

The Trailer:

An added note, I’ve started about three other Metalsploitation films, but didn’t finish them as they were Gawd-Awful. The Fiesta 13 1980’s Horror Movie OctoVember Challenge is only met when we finish a movie. Boy, what a lot of wasted mousse.

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