I wasn’t looking forward to this section because I didn’t think I would like it because vampire films can often end up cliche. I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed each film even though they were different from each other. All three films had story lines that involved vampires and found ways to explore the vampire genre in ways that are not typical.
Near Dark took a western story line and put a vampire spin on it. While the vampire gang had to kill to survive, they seemed to take joy in killing and eating. The bar scene was evidence of that. Mae and Caleb felt a connection and she “turned” him so that he could join their gang. Even though Caleb wanted to be with Mae, he never developed the vampire instincts and wanted to get back home to his family. His father ended up rescuing him and transfused his blood to turn him back human. On the other hand, Mae seemed perfectly content with vampire life; she loved the night, she said she could feel it and feel death, but she obviously had a strong connection with Caleb as well, because she risked her life to bring his sister home to him. When she wakes up, they have transfused her back to mortality but it leaves the question if that is what she wanted.
What We Do In The Shadows was hilarious. It has been added as one of my all-time favorite movies. Being filmed like a documentary made it even funnier because it allowed opportunities to break the fourth wall. I like that there were multiple characters being followed and exploring their different personalities. Since vampires live forever, they referenced history that we recognize and that they lived through which means they touched on sensitive topics along the way. I’m not going to say much more on this one but the reason it worked is because it took all the vampire myths and used them in a mocking, humorous way.
In Only Lovers Left Alive, the main couple Adam and Eve are worlds apart but “their connection is mysterious but powerful - something along the lines of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement in modern physics” (Only Lovers Left Alive (2013): Director Jim Jarmusch, The Horror Film Project). The beginning of the film shows them almost mirroring each other’s actions, lying with room spinning while listening to same music and then later both leaving their cluttered homes to head out to get “good blood” followed by ceremoniously partaking of their blood drink and experiencing a drugged out euphoria. Throughout the film, we see Adam’s connection to music and science and Eve’s connection to books. It was an interesting concept that the vampires used notable scientists, musicians, and writers to post their work since they couldn’t post as themselves forever. The film also had references to global warming and drugs. I don’t remember specific references to disease but the message was certainly there since they didn’t feed off humans for fear of contaminated blood. It also introduces the idea that vampires can contemplate suicide when Adam was feeling hopeless about the condition of the world and had a wooden bullet made as a way to kill himself. Luckily, his hope was restored through Eve and the music he heard in Tangier. At the end when Adam and Eve are fading and see a beautiful couple in love, Eve asks Adam to explain Einstein’s theory of quantum entanglement (which was used to describe their connection), to which Adam replied “If you separate an entwined particle and move both parts away from the other, even at opposite ends of the universe, if you alter or affect one, the other will be identically altered or affected.” They saw that connection in the young couple and decided to “turn” the couple to save themselves and continue vampire love. I also liked the quote in the Only Lovers Left Alive reading, “it makes no sense to maintain polar distinctions between white and nonwhite, First World and Third World, West and East. Indeed, if anything, the ending of the film suggests that, if we are to survive, our only hope is in abandoning such distinctions and pulling together in this oh-so-difficult period of human history.”