• Adrian Pasdar as Caleb Colton
• Jenny Wright as Mae
• Lance Henriksen as Jesse Hooker
• Bill Paxton as Severen
• Jenette Goldstein as Diamondback
• Joshua John Miller as Homer
• Marcie Leeds as Sarah Colton
• Tim Thomerson as Loy Colton
• Troy Evans as Plainclothes Police Officer
• Roger Aaron Brown as Cajun Truck Driver
• James LeGros as Teenage Cowboy
• Billy Beck as Motel Manager
• S.A. Griffin as Police Officer at Motel
• Neith Hunter as Lady in Truck
• Theresa Randle as Lady in Truck
Near Dark features three actors from Aliens, two of whom (Paxton and Henriksen) had also previously been in The Terminator and the other of whom (Goldstein) would later be in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, there is also a much more obscure casting connection between Near Dark and the Terminator movies: Robert Winley, who played a biker in the bar scene in Near Dark, and who had never been in any James Cameron movies at that time, later played the biker whose clothes, boots, and motorcycle are stolen by the T-800 in a very similar bar scene at the beginning of Terminator 2. His characters are identified in the credits as "Patron in bar" for the former movie and "Cigar Biker" for the latter.

Near Dark was part of a resurgence of American vampire films in the 1980s, along with the likes of Fright Night, Once Bitten (both 1985), Vamp (1986), The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad (both 1987). Director and co-writer Kathryn Bigelow wanted to film a Western movie; when she and fellow co-writer Eric Red found financial backing for a Western difficult to obtain, they decided to mix the Western genre with the then more popular vampire genre. The combination of the genres, which Bigelow and Red felt were ripe for revisionist interpretation, had been visited at least twice before on the big screen, with Curse of the Undead (1959) and Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966).

Bigelow knew (and later married) director James Cameron, who directed Aliens (1986), a film that shares three cast members (Paxton, Goldstein and Henriksen) with Near Dark. Actor Michael Biehn was offered the role of Jesse Hooker, but he rejected the role, because he found the script confusing. Lance Henriksen took over the role. A cinema seen in the background early in the film has Aliens on its marquee and Cameron played the man who "flips off" Severen.

Near Dark premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 1987.
Near Dark was released on October 2, 1987, in 262 theaters, grossing US$635,789 on its opening weekend. In its second week, the film's release widened to 429 screens. Near Dark went on to make $3.4 million, below its $5 million budget.

Bigelow has since attributed the film's lack of box office success to its close proximity to The Lost Boys—which was released two months prior to Near Dark, opening on a comparatively wider 1,542 screens—as well as it being an independent film. She has stated that The Lost Boys was a "vampire movie made by Warner Bros. that had a tremendous amount of muscle behind it, distribution and marketing muscle behind it. And so we were just this little [...] whisper out there."
Part of a late 1980s revival of serious vampire depictions on the big screen, it received mostly positive reviews for its mix of the Western, biker and vampire movie genres. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Near Dark holds an 83% approval rating based on 75 critic reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10. The consensus reads: "Near Dark is at once a creepy vampire film, a thrilling western, and a poignant family tale, with humor and scares in abundance."

In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, "Ms. Bigelow's too-studied compositions – Caleb in silhouette riding a horse toward the camera – clash with her unstudied approach to the characters' looks". Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader was impressed by Bigelow's first foray into big budget films with the "hillbilly vampire" movie, describing it as "beautifully shot". Hal Hinson of The Washington Post said the intermixing of vampire legends, westerns and biker movies has a result that is "both outrageous and poetic; it has extravagant, bloody thrills plus something else – something that comes close to genuine emotion". In his review for The Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, "Bill Paxton as the undead sex symbol – is exceptional, but not exceptional enough to put across the cop-out that concludes the film".

Richard Corliss of Time magazine called Near Dark "weird (and) beautiful" and "the all-time teenage vampire love story". Richard Schickel (also of Time) considered the film a clever variant of the vampire film genre. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone concurred, calling it "gory and gorgeous". Alan Jones of Radio Times awarded it four stars out of five, calling it a "1980s horror landmark" and "one of the best vampire movies ever made." Jones described it as a "visually stunning and frightening package, spinning a genuinely scary tale" and highlighted the "stand-out degenerate performances" of Henriksen and Paxton.

It has also been analysed for its queer coding of the vampire characters - specifically Severen.