Style Inspiration: Near Dark

I know that vampires are all the rage these days, but after taking a Vampires in Literature and Film class in university (oh yeah, that was offered), I feel like I might be a bit more qualified to talk about vampire films then some people out there.

I am a sucker for 80s vampire films. The Hunger, Lost Boys, and last, but very not least, Near Dark. Kathryn Bigelow's western vampire film is ridiculously violent, has a killer soundtrack (scored by Tangerine Dream), and is full of sociopathic crazy southern vampires.

Near Dark also does one thing for me that some of these other films have not. It gives me this ridiculous style inspiration. Call it growing up in the country, or maybe it's my fond nostalgia for the American Southwest, but it makes me want to be a sexy cowboy vamp.

Jenny Wright's tight jeans and tied shirts, Jenette Goldstein's blond hair and dark roots, and most importantly, Bill Paxton's spurs. I feel like I could get away with most of these looks in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but the spurs are something I'm not so sure of. But man, I would feel like such a badass...



I wish I was cool enough to pull of Jenette Goldstein's wicked dark roots and tough as nails exterior



Bill Paxton and Adrian Pasdar in the memorable bar scene. This scene singlehandedly made me want to own spurs, if you have yet to see it, it's on IFC all month, and easy enough to find on Netflix.

Too Much To Handle: Inside

I am highly desensitized towards horror films. I have always loved being scared, ALWAYS. I used to read The Berenstein Bears and the Spooky Tree at least once a week. My childhood bookshelf was full of the Goosebumps series, all of the Scary Stories collections and the like. As I've grown older, this love of safe fear and terror has only grown, and become more visual.

In college, as a film minor, I took classes on Vampires in Literature and Film, as well as a seminar on Horror and Sci-Fi Film. I gave speeches on George Romero, wrote papers on female survivors in zombie films, and also analyzed the work of French horror director Alexandre Aja. Thus began my love of French horror film.

Anyone who has seen Haute Tension knows how gory, horrifying, and generally fucked up it is. Well, let me tell you, if you don't follow European and French horror film, this is nothing. A short while ago I watched Frontiers, one of the Afterdark Horrorfest Films, and hands down the most disturbing film I had seen to date. The entire time my jaw was on the floor, and although it made me a bit sick, I felt the need to see just how far the French would go.

I turned to Netflix, Amazon, whatever I could to find a few more recent French horror films that may rival the disturbance caused by these two previous films. Well, congratulations France, you win. I just watched Inside.

Strike that, I didn't actually watch the whole thing. I couldn't. It made me so viscerally ill that I actually had to turn it off. Between the multiple stabbings, heads being blown off, eyes being gouged out, and pregnant women taking a beating I thought I had been through it all. I handled all that, and then I was expected to handle a scissor given at-home c-section? No. No no no no. I don't think so. That was not part of the deal.

So, I stopped. I just couldn't do it anymore. I totally pussed out. And ya know what, I'm okay with that. I'm actually rather glad that even a horror phenom such as myself has limits. Although, it's probably a bad thing that I'm now suspicious of all the French people I'm surrounded by....