30 Days of Night
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Movie Reviews of 30 Days of Night
Movie Review: I'm one of the viewers who actually loved this movie!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Realizing that people have different opinions about what they read and watch, and that not all will agree with each other on what's good and what isn't, I was still somewhat surprised by how many viewers didn't find the horror movie, 30 Days of Night, to be as great as I did. I'm usually pretty hard on horror flicks and don't expect a lot when I go to see one, but 30 Days of Night won me over in a way that left me stunned at the end of the movie and wanting to immediately see it again.
Directed by David Slade, the story takes place in Barrow, Alaska (a real town), which is in the northern part of the state and once a year experiences thirty days of night. Most of the town's people head south for the entire month, but there are enough humans left to entice a group of roving vampires to spend some quality vacation time there. It all begins when a stranger arrives (played wonderfully by Ben Foster) during the last day of light and cuts the telephone lines and kills the sled dogs so that the remaining town's people will be snowed in and unable to escape the wrath of his master, Marlow. The vampires then waste little time in attacking the town and killing every human being they can get their hands and teeth on. It's the town's sheriff (played by Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife (played by Melissa George) who manage to gather the surviving citizens and to find a place where they can hide from their hungry predators. The problem, of course, is finding a way to stay alive until the sun once again appears after thirty long days of night. That's going to be the challenge and few are going to make it.
I thoroughly loved this movie and have watched it about twelve times, enjoying every single viewing. Though I'm not a big fan of Josh Hartnett, I bought him as the sheriff and found his character to be totally believable. I also felt that all of the other actors did an excellent job as well, especially Danny Huston, who played Marlow, the lead vampire. He was utterly terrifying. I thought the vampires were played true to life in that they were portrayed as savage, violent predators, killing everything within their grasp so that they can feed on the blood. They were unbelievably fast and didn't hesitate in taking someone's head off, separating it from the body with one powerful sweep of their clawed hands. The desolation of Barrow was captured perfectly by the set designer and director of photography as the camera took in from above what was happening below as dozens and dozens of people were massacred in different parts of the town by the marauding vampires. This movie had me literally sitting on the edge of my seat and jumping in all the right places. In many ways I thought this was the best horror flick of 2007, running just ahead of the film, 1408, with John Cusack.
With regards to the DVD, I think I was close to being the first person to buy it when it eventually came out. I was hoping the movie would be released in a Special Two-Disc Collector's set, but it only came out as a single. Bah, humbug! Still, there's a great featurette on the making of the film, containing interviews with the cast members and crew, plus a look at the real Barrow, Alaska. The strange thing is that when the DVD came out, my roommate's daughter was getting ready to fly to Alaska with some friends, and I kept trying to get her to watch the movie before she left. She told me NO! in a rather loud way, not wanting to have nightmares the whole time that she was there, freezing in below-zero temperatures. I would've gone to Aruba, myself! LOL. Anyway, this film certainly has a special place in my DVD collection of horror films. Highly recommended!!!
Movie Review: Ground Breaking Directing
Summary: 5 Stars
The vampire genre can provide for some great literature or some truly awful films. The humans vs. vampires or zombies genre has been beaten to death. Until now! '30 Days of Night' provides for a breathtaking amount of visually terrifying life and death suspense.
Based on the graphic novel of the same title '30 Days of Night' takes place entirely in an Alaskan frontier town which annually experiences 30 days without the sun. This reduces the population to just over 150. This gives a gang of Eastern European vampires 30 days to openly drink the town dry.
The film is brilliant in the way it builds tension. First off the setting of a dark ghost town covered in snow could not be more frightening. Light is scarce and shadows everywhere give the villains plenty of places to lurk. Anything could pop out over everywhere. The DVD reveals the set was in fact a New Zealand equestrian center.
Much like `Die Hard 2' the film builds the fear of total inescapable chaos slowly with tragic events building on each other. It's not just "Hello we're here we're the vampires." No, the fear comes from not knowing what is coming. Hartnett and his one deputy don't realize what is happening until it is too late. The fear comes slowly as transportation and communications are eliminated by the mysterious drifter. He's creepy and we shudder to wonder where he came from as the town is surrounded by ice.
The vampires themselves are truly horrifying as they do not look like Anne Rice's disco queens or `Buffy's' rubber masked punks. No, these vampires are Nosferatu except worse. Their faces are white and everything else, eyes, hair, and clothing is black. The only color being the blood on their teeth adds to the fear. Much like the cast of `Name of the Rose' they scrounged Europe for the scariest looking before makeup actors they could find. Danny Huston is an unforgettable villain.
The vampires are so inhuman they even speak their own vampire language far scarier than `Blade.' Although most of the time they communicate with chilling sketches. Their movement is also supernatural and inhuman.
Most effective of all the vampires are hard to kill. We truly fear for our band of heroes. How can humans hope to fight these things? This adds tremendously to the plot as we cannot imagine what will happen. Don't the good guys have to win? Or at least take the bad guys with them? Anything is possible.
While we do get a couple of vampires being bisected by John Deere, incinerated by a UV light, caught in a meat grinder, and a little girl decapitated by a fire ax, the film does not disappoint in its premise that a band of mortals is no match for these vampires. This is summed up perfectly with the classic line, "Just because something worked on Bela Lugosi doesn't mean it will work on these guys."
We do not suffer the token clips of chair legs being carved into stakes, crucifixes being taken down from walls, or Bibles being used to make holy water.
David Slade has truly created a visual masterpiece that like a horror film should, uses visuals and sounds to frighten. Not just entertain.
The only downside is that Josh Hartnett as always still suffers from Down syndrome. "Tell me about the vampires George."
Movie Review: Among the Best Vampire Movies Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
A savage vision of vampires is unleashed in 30 Days Of Night, veering sharply from either haunting atmosphere or gothic grandeur to bring on a horde of utterly vicious, predatory bloodsuckers. The small town of Barrow is the most northerly community in Alaska, so far north that in the dead of winter nights become so long and days so short that once a year it enters 30 days of uninterrupted darkness. During this annual nightfall, much of the town's population of 800 heads south, leaving basically a skeleton crew of inhabitants. The local oil refinery shuts down and the remaining citizens hunker in to wait out the night.
On the last day of brief daylight, several miles out from Barrow by the Arctic waters, a massive, battered cargo ship appears. Unseen inland, where most of the residents have either left or are preparing to leave (many to larger communities in southern Alaska, from which they'll return in a month), the ship waits for night, while the only human passenger of the vessel makes his way inland to Barrow. Once there he stealthily cuts off the only ways the townspeople would have to leave once night falls. Barrow is 80 miles from the nearest community; it has no paved roads leading that distance, relying on strong offroad tractors and plows. The stranger sabotages these (the ones that didn't leave with the majority of the citizens), kills the dogs that pull the dogsleds, and wrecks the helicopter operated by the small tourism business. The stranger is found and locked up, but he's not what people really have to worry about; he was just making sure the buffet couldn't get up and leave. And as darkness settles in, on the outskirts of Barrow, the vampires begin with their strikes, leading up to a massive all-out assault by a swarm of the creatures. Even if anybody survives the initial slaughter, there's still a full month of night to go...
The vampires are horrific creatures; they look, in ways, more rat-like than the bats with which they're often associated. As they dart along the rooftops getting ready to pounce on their prey below they're reminicent of rats scurrying along darkened ledges. The special effects and innovative cinematography are outstanding, the musical score distinct and memorable, and the performances universally exemplary. 30 Days Of Night actually features one of 2007's best impressive overall displays of acting, although I doubt any mainstream critic would want to admit that of any movie this firmly in horror territory. Strong characterization plus a presentation of the vampires that makes them both supernaturally powerful but constantly believable, round out one of the best vampire movies ever made.
The disc also features the first episode of the horror anime series "Blood Plus", the follow-up to Blood - The Last Vampire. Just judging from this, the series is off to a good start, although the actual animation is a bit more basic than in "Last Vampire". Looks to be doing a good job early on of establishing characters and ideas.
Movie Review: Creepy, Frightening, and Scary - Grade A Vampire Flick
Summary: 5 Stars
I never heard of "30 Days of Night" until the movie was released. The concept of a remote Alaskan town under siege by vampires during the time when the sun doesn't show for 30 days struck me as fresh and interesting. The movie did not disappoint. Adding to the brilliance of the concept is that the vampires are portrayed as being anything but romantic creatures who woo their victims into submission. Romance, and religion, have been removed from the vampire equation, which adds to the appeal of the film's story. The vampires are coldly intelligent predators, whose idea of foreplay is to take someone's throat out. Danny Huston's portrayal of the leader of the vampire pack is amazing, proving you don't need pounds of prosthetics and hours of CG to provide a fright. Mr. Huston, and his scary band of vampires, deserve top billing.
Barrow, the hapless town targeted by the vampires, is cut off from the rest of world due to the weather, and the sabotage of the vampires' advance scout. Town residents are taken out in scenes of all out carnage. A memorable sequence is a continuous overhead shot that moves through one of the town's streets, showing the vampires dragging people from their homes, and the folks of Barrow trying to fight off the vampires. The scene slams home how the vampires use surprise to subdue and slaughter the town folks, dropping the already low human population of Barrow (the majority of the town's residents regularly leave the town during the month of darkness, unable to cope with not having any sunlight for so long) down to a few survivors trying to hide. After the initial blood bath, the movie moves into the suspense factor, as the remaining humans try to avoid the vampires until the sun rises again, and the vampires use their wiles to hunt down the remaining humans. Very scary. Take the movie's R rating seriously.
There are some holes in the plot - the biggest being the ending. I kept questioning what, exactly, the vampires were eating, as they left prodigious quantities of their victim's blood lying around, as well as their victims headless corpses. Still, I had such a good time viewing this movie, that I could suspend my questions and enjoy the movie. I am not usually a fan of horror films, but I am a fan of this horror film.
Movie Review: Thrilling vampire flick!
Summary: 5 Stars
In a quiet Alaskan town named Barrow, once in a year there's a phenomeon of a month of darkness since it's far north of the arctic circle. A vicious bloodthirsty pack of vampires attacks the once peaceful town and turns it into a living hell, Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Harnett) and wife Stella (Melissa George) with some survivors must fight these savage creatures.
Exciting and action-packed horror thriller from the director of 2006's acclaimed thriller "Hard Candy" David Slade and based on a comic book series by Steve Niles whom he also co-wrote the screenplay to this movie. This is one of the better vampires to come out of late, Sam Raimi co-produced this movie and the performances by the cast are good. The film does follow the comics quite well, the vampires themselves are cool looking and the film is loaded with extreme violence and gore such as a vampire child being murdered by an axe, exploding heads, and oodles of more gore for the gorehounds. The storyline is very different then your usual vampire flick as it has an eerie atmosphere that gives the movie a nice touch. If your a fan of vampire movies, i suggest you check this out and also read the graphic novels.
This DVD contains some good extras like audio commentary, 8 featurettes and an episode of the excellent anime series "Blood +".
Also recommended: "Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004)", "Night of the Living Dead (1968 and 1990)", "Silent Hill", "Fright Night", "Vamp", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Lifeforce", "The Hunger", "Near Dark", "Blade Trilogy", "The Mist", "I Am Legend", "The Omega Man", "John Carpenter's Vampires", "Grindhouse", "Sin City", "Vampire Hunter D", "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust", "Blood The Last Vampire", "Embrace of the Vampire", "The Monster Squad", "The Lost Boys", "Fright Night 2", "Cronos", "Interview with the Vampire", "Def By Temptation", "Demons", "Bram Stoker's Dracula", "Dracula (1931)", "Nosferatu (1922)", "Day of the Dead", "Land of the Dead", "Return of the Living Dead", "Horror of Dracula", "Night Flier", "Rabid" and "The Forsaken".