“Near Dark” (1987)
Bigelow teamed with “The Hitcher” scribe Eric Red to gleefully rewrite vampire lore, mixing the Western with horror and romance for this flawed but fun B-movie genre crossover. In a gender reversal, Adrian Pasdar’s cowpoke is the innocent damsel in distress, sucked by waif Jenny Wright into Lance Hendrickson’s itinerant bloodsucking crew. The V word is never spoken, and these white trash hobos are far removed from aristocratic counts of yore, too dumb to plan further than their next feed, too feral to figure the desert isn’t safe when you burn in the sun. Fangless, they kill with knives, guns, spurs and relish, most memorably in a near iconic redneck bar takeout. Perhaps unfairly, James Cameron’s influence is felt throughout, in the cast (Hendrickson, Jenette Goldstein and an enjoyably scene stealing Bill Paxton from “Aliens“) and cinematography (Adam ‘The Terminator’ Greenberg). However, the muscular action dynamic, comic book imagery and glossy sheen that squeezes every drop out of a $5 million budget is really all Bigelow’s own. The fresh-for-80’s ideas swiftly became cliche, but this original has enough pulpy energy to outshine its numerous higher budgeted imitators. Finger lickin’ good indeed. – MB
“Blue Steel” (1990)
Blue Steel contains many familiar genre elements, but Kathryn Bigelow rearranges them into something new and thought provoking in this gripping police thriller. Part “Dirty Harry,” part “Gaslight,” part”Halloween,” as well as the ultimate New York dating cautionary tale, “Blue Steel” features Jamie Lee Curtis as a rookie cop implicated in the search for a serial killer who might be the charming commodities trader she just started dating. In one of her strongest performances, Curtis gives voice to every flicker of pride, apprehension, and frustration that accompany her first days on the force. The movie rarely mentions her gender openly, but it’s the subtext throughout as it determines the roles the men around her are able to see her as – mostly helpless naïf in the case of police, or fetish object for her killer paramour. Despite being a cop, ostensibly empowered by law and violence, Curtis is repeatedly ignored by male colleagues (he’s on Wall Street, he can’t be the killer!) and by the end is in a situation her character from “Halloween” would have recognized – alone, pursued by a relentless killer, with nothing but her inner strength to save her. – JB
“Point Break” (1991)
“Young, dumb and full of cum.” This might be the most appropriate sentence to describe “Point Break,” Bigelow’s preposterous, a little ridiculous, but utterly entertaining and superbly shot action thriller that arguable paved the way for XTreme sports entertainment (or at least fueled the fire). Perhaps no other film of the 1990s, aside from maybe “Speed” defined the early ‘90s action crime thriller like “Point Break.” “God, that movie and the cinematography. It still looks fantastic, Edgar Wright recently told The Playlist. “Kathryn Bigelow is one of the great action movie directors ever, period.” He should know: “Hot Fuzz” has loving direct-homage to the movie and arguably wouldn’t exist with “Point Break.” By now, you know the plot, but let’s describe to reiterate just how ludicrous it is: a young, straight-out-of-the-academy FBI agent is tasked with infiltrating a group of bank robbers that masquerade as zen-surfers during the day because ultimate adrenaline rush, bro. Keanu Reeves at his most dude-iest plays the hotheaded FBI’er and Patrick Swayze embodies the role of the paradoxical, totally-chill surfer and bank robbing mastermind. The plot is outlandish, the dialogue is pretty terrible at times, but boy is “Point Break” awesome. Directed with top-notch vigor, Bigelow crafts a movie that dazzles with its action heights, and choreography. It’s also a testament to her filmmaking prowess that Bigelow rushes past the movie’s suspension-of-disbelief breaks and creates a rip-roaring thrill ride that has rightly earned its cult status. If “fear causes hesitation,” like Swayze’s Bodhi character extols, the director runs headlong into the waves, crashing and cutting it up like the best of them. – RP