Near Dark: Bill Paxton as a Vampire Biker
Bill Paxton in Near Dark (1987)
Vitals
Bill Paxton as Severen, vampire biker
Oklahoma to Kansas, Fall 1986
Film: Near Dark
Release Date: October 2, 1987
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Designer: Joseph A. Porro
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would’ve been the 70th birthday of Bill Paxton, born May 17, 1955. After his uncredited screen debut in Jonathan Demme’s period crime flick Crazy Mama (1975), Paxton emerged as one of director James Cameron’s favorite supporting players through the 1980s and ’90s as seen in The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), True Lies (1994), and Titanic (1997).
Amidst these, Paxton also appeared as the memorably psychotic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow’s solo directorial debut, the 1987 neo-Western horror film Near Dark. Despite an underwhelming initial box office performance, many contemporary critics praised the film—specifically Paxton’s “exceptional [performance]… as the undead sex symbol,” according to Jay Scott for The Globe and Mail. Near Dark has continued growing a cult following in the decades since its release.
What’d He Wear?
Consistent with the nomadic crew’s outlaw image, Severen styles himself as a badass biker, complete with a black leather motorcycle jacket that’s been to hell and back, resplendent with rips, fraying, and other signs of distress—some repaired with duct tape while most is left alone to maintain the jacket’s character.
The jacket features the characteristic asymmetrical front zip, snap-down lapels, zip-back sleeves, and bi-swing pleats behind the shoulders that have all been standard elements since Schott introduced their Perfecto jacket in the 1920s, but the jacket is otherwise free of excessive belt, buckles, flaps, or straps, with only two slanted zip-up hand pockets—letting Severen’s chaotic adornments take the spotlight.
Three badges are pinned across the jacket’s right chest:
- The smallest and highest-placed badge consists of a silver oval, bisected horizontally and topped with a crown, perhaps issued by the British military or government.
- The winged center badge has large circular silver wings flanking the round emblem of a white sun against a blue field, perhaps issued by the Taiwanese Air Force (ROCAF).
- The lowest badge is clearly a silver shield-shaped police badge, with “SPECIAL” and “POLICE” above and below a five-pointed star in the center. The generic language suggests a prop badge.
On Severen’s upper right sleeve, he pairs a pale yellow-on-black embroidered “WELFARE” arc tab above a large stylized MACV-SOG Recon Team patch: a green-bordered shield with an embroidered design of a gray-gloved arm thrusting a sword up through the skull wearing a brown beret, embroidered against a black ground with the word “HUNTER” embroidered in red across the bottom, an appropriately aggressive design for these hunter-killer recon teams.
At the cuff-end of the sleeve, he wears a heraldic-style crest patch that appears to depict a coat of arms. A simple cornflower-blue shield is detailed with a bent right arm extending from the left side, holding a green-stemmed red rose in its fist. The shield is bordered in the same silver-wire embroidery as the dragon-like design poised above it, finished with blue tufted fabric.
Severen dresses both the right and left collar points with silver pins of a longhorn steer skull. Farther down the right side, he pins a memento mori symbol to his right lapel representing a sword or dagger pushing downward through a classic skull-and-crossbones motif. The lower left lapel is decorated with a vintage brass police officer’s sunburst-shaped shield of points radiating behind a circular center marked with “N 622″—presumably the original wearer’s precinct and badge number—though Severen wears it upside-down, adding an extra degree of chaos.
He wears military patches on both upper sleeves, though ironically contrasting the right sleeve’s aggressive hunter-killer team patch with ambulatory patches on his left sleeve. This includes the yellow-on-black embroidered “AMBULANCE” tab sewn just above a patch for the American Red Cross’ Military Welfare Service, which features the service’s name encircling the organization’s eponymous red cross embroidered in the center.
Under the jacket, Severen wears a red, white, black, and yellow tartan plaid flannel shirt that grows increasingly distressed over the events of Near Dark. The front placket fastens through red four-hole buttons though Severen always wears it open (especially after part of the front is destroyed) to show his dirty white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. The shirt may be short- or long-sleeved—or Severen may have removed the sleeves altogether—and it has a neckband collar rather than the conventional turndown collar found on flannel button-up shirts.
He echoes the colors in his shirt with the surprising surfer-esque affectation of a red, tan, and black mini-beaded necklace that closes around his neck through a silver barrel-style clasp.
Severen’s tight black leather motorcycle pants match the distress of his jacket, with sewn-on repair patches over the left thigh and right knee. He holds these trousers up with a black edge-stitched leather belt that closes through a silver concho-style buckle, matching the conchos mounted around the rest of the belt itself. He also straps on a black leather holster with a studded belt and a narrower tapered strap that fastens through a small squared silver-toned single-prong buckle.
The bottoms are fastened with zippers along the inside of each calf, and Severen decorates the outer left leg with patches from at least seven police departments (including Dallas and Los Angeles), echoing the badges adorning his jacket.
Severen wears black calf leather riding boots, rigged with spurs that he memorably uses to slice open the rural Kansas bartender who’s “havin’ a little trouble with your hog-leg there.”
Severen wears a pair of silver rings on his right hand. On his middle finger, he wears a wide band with at least three settings for stones—of which the center stone is missing. His ring finger sports a busier silver “Chief Skull Ring”, depicting a skull wearing a feathered headdress. These rings were mass-produced through Mexico and the American Southwest through the late 1960s and ’70s, gaining popularity among counterculture rebels for symbolizing toughness and death through the co-opted mystique of Native iconography.
During the Kansas barroom massacre, Severen takes a pair of black wayfarer-style sunglasses from one of his victims that he proceeds to wear through the rest of the scene. These may be genuine Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades, developed in the early 1950s but fashionably revived through the ’80s thanks to iconic screen appearances like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
The only time Severen significantly diverges from his biker jacket is when he’s practicing his quickdraw and hitches a ride. While he wears the same moto trousers, belt, holster, and boots, he swaps out the jacket and plaid shirt for a more presentable white cotton tuxedo-style formal shirt with a narrowly pleated front, double (French) cuffs, and front placket buttoned up to the spread collar—where he sports not a bow tie but rather a bolo tie that maintains his Western aesthetic. The bolo itself is a narrow trapezoidal shape of filigreed silver, detailed with two pieces of turquoise for southwestern flair.
The Guns
Impervious to most bullets themselves, the vampire gang travels heavily armed for when situations call for more firepower than devouring their victims. Severen’s sidearm is a stainless Ruger Redhawk—a large-framed double-action/single-action revolver that had just been introduced at the start of the ’80s.
Originally designed to fire the heaviest .44 Magnum loads, the Redhawk revived the robust “Triple Lock” functionality of early 20th century Smith & Wesson revolvers. These heavy revolvers maintained the grip profile and simplified construction of earlier Ruger models like the Security Six but with a refreshed design that relied on a single coil spring for the hammer and trigger, resulting in a heavier trigger pull even in single-action mode.
As Ruger continued refining the Redhawk, they added models in .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and .45 Long Colt, though only the .357 and .44 Magnum models remain in production today. Around the time that Near Dark was released in late 1987, Ruger also released the Super Redhawk, redesigned to accommodate even more powerful loads like .454 Casull.
Ruger built the original Redhawk in several different cosmetic configurations, offering blued or stainless finishes and barrels ranging between four and 7.5 inches long, with Severen opting for the flashier stainless finish but rigged to a more portable 5.5″-long barrel.
Severen draws his Ruger Redhawk as the gang’s leader Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen) pulls his Desert Eagle. Given that these are both handguns designed to handle Magnum loads, it’s clear the gang does not like to travel with low-caliber firearms.
For heavier-duty combat like the motel standoff with police, Severen arms himself with an Ithaca 37 pump-action shotgun, modified with the stock removed for a pistol grip and an extended magazine tube that fits up to seven shells.
The longest continuously produced shotgun in American history, the Ithaca 37 was developed in 1937 as the Ithaca Gun Company’s response to the late firearms designer John M. Browning’s expired patent for the Remington Model 17. The design is distinguished by the novel combined loading/ejection port on the bottom of the receiver, which left the sides closed against the elements—an element that made it favorable to U.S. military personnel, especially troops engaged in the jungles of Vietnam.
With his stainless Ruger Redhawk shoved in his belt, Severen loads 12-gauge shells into his Ithaca pump shotgun.
How to Get the Look
Bill Paxton in Near Dark (1987)
Severen blends outlaw biker grit with dusty western flair in his weathered leather moto jacket and matching pants, both ironically patched with military and police insignia, and paired with a shredded plaid shirt and silver-toned jewelry evoking Native American and frontier influences as he and his nocturnal nomads roam the plains.
- Black leather motorcycle jacket with snap-down lapels, asymmetrical front zip, slanted zip-up side pockets, zip-back cuffs, and bi-swing shoulder pleats—decorated with various military and police patches and badges
- Red, white, black, and yellow tartan plaid flannel shirt with neckband collar and front placket
- White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
- Black leather motorcycle pants with belt loops and zip-up bottoms—also decorated with police patches up the left leg
- Black edge-stitched leather belt with silver concho-style buckle and adornment
- Black studded leather holster with tapered single-prong buckle strap
- Black leather riding boots with russet leather-strapped spurs
- Silver “Chief Skull” ring
- Silver banded ring with triple stone setting
- Black wayfarer-style sunglasses
Noah Segan cited Paxton’s biker jacket style in Near Dark as a major sartorial influence on the vampire he portrayed in his 2022 directorial debut Blood Relatives.
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The Quote
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Great movie, a bit of an Aliens reunion with Henriksen and Goldstein. Near Dark was the better of the vampire “westerns” that came out over the years, like John Carpenter’s Vampire$ and The Forsaken. Good job as always BAMF style!
This is how I wanted to dress every day my sophomore year of high school. I actually appreciate my mom for curbing the impulse some. Alas, I never had enough derrière for leather trousers.