If you like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain; if you like Blade Runner and The Devil’s Rejects, this might be your escape.

Seriously, whatever road leads from Blade Runner to The Devil’s Rejects must pass right through the middle of the southern fried gothiverse that is Near Dark. The cinematography is achingly gorgeous, the direction is in the zone and the story is engrossing. Plotwise, it’s just another boy meets girl, girl bites boy, boy becomes vampire, boy has identity crisis kind of thing, but the execution is flawless.

You’re probably familiar with at least three members of the cast: Adrian Pasdar (Heroes’ Nathan Petrelli), Lance Henrickson (Millenium), and Bill Paxton (half of all movies ever filmed). You may also recognize Jenny Wright, who had a brief but memorable role as a groupie in Pink Floyd’s The Wall that led to starring roles in an untold number of autoerotic fantasies and minor parts in a couple of other 80s movies (imdb if you want to know which ones). After Near Dark, she bounced around the C-list for another decade and then disappeared. Anyway, she does a good job here.

Director Kathryn Bigelow made her mark with Near Dark, then went on to an uneven career including Point Break, Strange Days, and K19: The Widowmaker.

The best bit of trivia comes from writer Eric Red, who displayed a brief flash of B-movie brilliance in the 80s, exhausted his talent in the 90s, and then bottomed out in a truly sad and bizarre car crash in 2000. Plus, with a name like that, he’s gotta be a viking.

I’d tell you more about the movie, but why spoil it? It’s good. Watch it.

Oh yeah, and it’s being remade right now, so hurry up before another lost gem gets magically transformed into a jillion dollar rhinestone. You can still say you saw it when!