AG
Alessio Gradogna
•Young Caleb meets a beautiful girl named Mae. A fatal attraction arises between them, culminating when she bites him on the neck. Caleb tries to return home, but a physical illness begins to confuse and weaken him. Amidst his transformation, he is kidnapped by Mae's "family" of vampires, a group of undead who travel the Mid-West roads in search of victims to drain and places to destroy for pure fun. Caleb's real family searches for him, finds him, brings him home, and cures him with a blood transfusion. But the vampires, jealous and vengeful, return to reclaim what now belongs to them. One of the best vampire movies of the 1980s, which fits into the urban vampire genre without renouncing western elements and typical road movie elements that will later be found in "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "Vampires" by Carpenter. Bigelow, a specialist in thrillers and action films, focuses on the almost entomological analysis of the relationships and behaviors that characterize the members of the "family": the two mature and centenarian adults, the fanatical and violent son, the gun-slinging child who lives his life as if it were a movie, and the sweet and insecure Mae. Caleb's physical transformation changes mostly in integrating into this core, first encountering hatred, then friendship, and finally the vampires' revenge towards him, Mae for love and the others for jealousy and selfishness. The figure of the vampire becomes both modern and classic in being guided by the sacred principles of self-preservation and the sense of belonging to the race, and the common man, Caleb, is yet another prey who cannot escape the fascination induced by the physical strength and reckless life of his new companions. A good film, lacking in splatter sequences but cruel in the images of the destruction of the vampires literally "cooked" by the sunlight, an auteur film that addresses the vampire myth from original angles and ahead of its time, and for this reason worthy of consideration. It is worth noting that the screenplay (otherwise not exempt from some visible flaws and some points left unexplained, especially regarding Caleb's and then Mae's "healing") is the work of Eric Red ("The Hitcher"), and among the actors is Lance Henriksen (Aliens - Scontro finale).
