“It’s one of the greatest vampire movies ever made,” director, writer, and actor Kevin Smith said about Near Dark in a recent interview with Kotaku. Yet the 1986 vampire western from then-unknown director Kathryn Bigelow is nearly impossible to watch in 2024, and that’s a damn shame.
A quick Google search for “Near Dark streaming” pulls up a lot of SEO bait promising it’s available here, there, and elsewhere—but it’s not. You can’t watch it on AppleTV (a title search gives me only Calls, a thriller from Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez), Netflix (“We don’t have Near Dark but you might like: The Sentinel or Curse of Chucky”), Hulu (you get a “download AMC” prompt when searching for it, but it’s not on there either), or famed horror streaming platform Shudder (suggested films are A Blade in the Dark, A Dark Song, Deadhouse Dark). Though TV streamer Pluto TV promises you can watch it for free, right now, it’s not on there. And, sadly, it apparently was on Amazon Prime via something called MovieSphere until just two days ago, but now, just as October begins, it vanishes into the ether. Oh, the irony.
The last time I watched it was a little over two years ago on the Criterion Channel, the boutique movie publisher’s excellent curated streaming service. But it’s not there, either. You can buy the Near Dark Blu-Ray for a hundred bucks, or a DVD from an Amazon seller known as Harvest Mouse LLC for $40. As Smith said in our interview, “get it on VHS.” A friendly X (formerly Twitter) user alerted me to its existence on Archive.org, so if you want to watch it on a laptop, I guess you can do that, too.
The immense difficulty in finding a viable way to watch Near Dark is yet another example of the fleeting nature of digital media and the importance of physical preservation. It’s also a bummer, because this movie fucking rocks. Near Dark is on our list of 31 spooky movies you should watch this Halloween season for a reason: it’s a sexier, gorier Twilight that came out decades before Mormon-adjacent vampire love was a twinkle in Stephenie Meyer’s eye. Yes, Near Dark is a love story, despite it being viciously violent and disturbing for most of its run-time.
It’s also, perhaps, one of the late Bill Paxton’s best roles. The iconic actor plays a deranged vampire named Severen who wears a biker jacket adorned with badges from different time periods that are likely from all the people he’s eaten. A lengthy, uncomfortable scene where the coven of vampires take over a bar and torture its customers (led by Paxton who taunts, teases, and eventually kills most of them) will have you squirming in your seat. The sadistic way in which he pulls a man’s sunglasses off his face as he’s being choked by him, laughing as his windpipe is constricted, will make your skin crawl.
Paxton isn’t the only great thing about this film, though. Bigelow deftly establishes a neo-Western vibe and mood that is gritty, dirty, and downright rotten at times, while expertly balancing its crueler moments with a love story that glistens like a pearl resting on a dank ocean floor. It’s an absolute must-watch, and yet you may not be able to.
Near Dark is the unfortunate victim of the same fate as Strange Days, another Kathryn Bigelow classic that is difficult to watch but essential to find. Here’s hoping it’ll come back on streaming services before October is up.