30 Days of Night - Review

Director: David Slade
Writers: Niles/Beattie/Nelson
Based on the Comic by: Ben Templesmith
Starring: Josh Hartnett/Melissa George

Vampire fans won't be disappointed in 30 Days of Night, but they won't find anything new, either.

That isn't a damning statement. With horror and its myriad sub-genres, you go in expecting certain things to happen. When they do, you feel strangely satisfied, as long as they are handled well.

30 Days of Night is about the downfall of smalltown Barrow, Alaska. As the film's title suggests, the town suffers from 30 straight days of night during the winter. When you throw vampires into the mix, you know that the film is going to be a bloodbath for the Barrow locals.

The film asks for some suspension of disbelief beyond the usual "vampire-bit-me" stuff. In the film, Barrow, Alaska is cut off from the outside world for the entire month, because planes can't land there. Planes can't land at night? This seems dubious, and it is: if you go on Alaskan Airlines' website, you'll see that they have flights to Barrow every day throughout the winter.

But that's nitpicking. As I said in a review of Vacancy, horror films are getting harder and harder to make. It's simply impossible to cut anyone off from the outside world. Cell phones, airplanes, the internet, you name it. So when the filmmakers use the old "last plane out of town," or, "Damn, the cell phone doesn't have reception," you have to forgive them for it.

I enjoyed 30 Days. It harkened back to John Carpenter's The Thing. I like movies where the locals think they are king of castle, only to have their safe little habitat become a nightmare prison.

Josh Harnett does an okay turn as the hero of the movie, once he stops snivelling and whining. Male leads have recently decided to get in touch with their sensitive side. It's all right in a Dr. Phil kind of way, but when it comes to killing vampires, I want my heroes to have some backbone.

The rest of the cast is pretty good. Danny Huston, as the head vampire, is suitably menacing and mean spirited. Gone are the days of classy vampires seducing young women. Now they swoop from street corner to street corner, expose terribly sharp teeth, and utter a grunt once in a while.

In this film, the vampires "speak," which is a shame. Made-up gibberish doesn't sound convincing no matter how many times you run it through the special effects lab, so it comes off as hokey. I wish they'd just let actors speak, or not speak. Not speaking is creepy. Speaking gibberish pulls you out of the movie and makes you ask yourself questions like, "I wonder if that's Hungarian, or if they just made all that up?"

If you can avoid thoughts like that, and keep your mind on the fact that this is meant to be moderately mindless, somewhat gory fun, then 30 Days will entertain you this Halloween.