Vampire Flicks: 30 Days of Night (2007)

To start off, I had no idea about this film at all when it was released. I had never heard of the graphic novel and I only became aware of this movie when I saw commercial spots for it. From what I could tell, it looked fairly promising. The vampires looked scary and the visuals were quite stunning. I didn't see the film in the theater, however, and I only finally got a look at it around Halloween of 2010. I made sure to see it on Blu-Ray because the film already had a reputation for being visually stunning and high-def would no doubt bring that up to maximum. I was right about that. The movie was pretty to look at. Unfortunately, that's one of the few things the movie as a whole had going for it. I was so tempted to make this an edition of Movies That Suck because I remember vividly the emptiness I felt by the time this movie was over but upon watching it again for this review, I decided not to because I don't think it's that bad. However, I still feel it's a prime example of a film that's all style and no substance.

Barrow, Alaska is a small town in the Arctic Circle that is approaching the "30 Days of Night", a time period where the sun sets and it stays dark for an entire month. On the last day before it begins, a series of unusual events like the gruesome deaths of several people and sled dogs, as well as vandalism of cell-phones and the town's only helicopter, occur. The town's sheriff, Eben Oleson, investigates these crimes while dealing with his estranged wife, Stella, who's planning to leave before the darkness sets in. However, an accident prevents her from leaving and as the darkness settles in, more strange events happen, including the appearance of an unknown man in the town. Eben and Stella arrest the man, who keeps saying stuff along the lines of, "They're coming." "They" turn out to be a bunch of violent people who are revealed to be bloodthirsty vampires who ransack the town. Now the survivors must try to survive the month of darkness while fending off the monsters.

This movie was directed by David Slade, who had done only one other movie up to that point: a horror movie called Hard Candy. I've never seen that film but I've heard a lot of good things about it as well as it being very hard to watch. As I've said, he manages to bring a great visual style to the movie but that's all he does here as far as I'm concerned. But before I begin bashing on this movie, let me comment on those visuals. They are amazing. Many have compared the look of this film to John Carpenter's The Thing and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and I can see why. The opening scenes in the daytime with the setting sun over the snow-covered landscape are breathtaking and I do like the fact that when the film gets dark, it literally does get dark. In fact, it looks like a black and white movie done in color, if that makes any sense. It's like there's black ink over the filter of the camera. It's hard to explain in words and you have to see it for yourself to understand. Since this was based on a graphic novel, I'm pretty sure that's the look Slade was going for and he succeeded with flying colors in that regard.

Let me also say that the basic idea for the story has potential. Being isolated in snowbound, cold places usually makes for great horror films (like those two classics that I mentioned). Whether it's being trapped with an alien life-form that can take you over like The Thing or stuck in a haunted hotel with a madman like The Shining, horror usually works well in the snow. The idea of having vampires attack an area where the sun disappears for months on end is a great one because it solves the sort of "stop/start, sunset/sunrise" formula that vampire movies always run into. So, yes, the story can be a good one... if told well and that's where this movie drops the ball as far as I'm concerned.

The biggest problem is the characters. These are some of the blandest, most hollow people I've ever been expected to care about in any movie, let alone a horror movie. To be fair, most of the actors are okay but they're so poorly developed that I honestly can't remember any of their names or faces and well into the movie, I forgot about a good majority of them. I'd be seeing some characters and I'd say to myself, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about him." That's a sign of bad screenwriting (and one of the writers of the comic, Steve Niles, helped in writing the screenplay so that makes me wonder if the comic itself is worth a crap as well). But, as I said, most of the actors aren't that bad. Unfortunately, the two leads are played by two abusively of the most uncharismatic, boring actors imaginable.

The worst part of the movie is Josh Hartnett as Sheriff Eben Oleson. A friend of mine once referred to him as a "black hole of charisma" and that's the truth in a nutshell. Ben Affleck is often excused of being really bland but Hartnett makes him look like Sir Laurence Olivier. This guy is so monotone, wooden, and uninteresting that it's unbelievable. The first time I watched this movie, I almost fell asleep because of him. I don't understand why the remaining townspeople look to him as a leader when the chips are down because he does nothing to keep their spirits up. That leads me to another flaw with this character: this guy's the sheriff and he's not even thirty? I'm not saying someone that young couldn't be sheriff but I just don't buy him as one because he doesn't feel or look like one. If anything, I'd expect him to be more like the deputy. Maybe I'm just biased about this but that and his terrible acting didn't help me care about the guy. Another thing, too, although this is a bias that has nothing to do with the film itself: I just don't like the fact that Hartnett starts off his career with a horror film (Halloween H2O, which he was okay in), basically turns his back on the genre once he becomes a big star for some ungodly reason, and when mainstream roles dry up for him, he crawls back to horror. Screw this loser.

I didn't care much for Melissa George as Oleson's estranged wife, Stella, either. She had more personality than Hartnett, granted, but she's still uninteresting and bland. The subplot of her and Oleson having marital problems becomes completely pointless by the time the shit hits the fan and by the time the movie's over, they've reconciled their differences. Okay, two things. One, we're never told why they're having marital problems. Did one cheat on the other? Did she have a miscarriage and things went south for them after that? You've got to give me some detail for me to care about it other than to just simply state that they're having problems and say nothing more about it. Second, they've reconciled by the end of the movie. How? When did they have time to talk when they were either hiding from or trying to keep from being butchered by vampires? Some may say the situation brought them together again but I'm just like, "Bull!" They also try to make the ending mean something by having Oleson inject himself with vampire blood so he can fight them off and then die in Stella's arms when the sun comes up. Sorry but after not giving me a reason why they're having marital problems and how they managed to reconcile, this ending that's meant to be tragic means completely nothing. You FAIL!

As I've said, the supporting actors are fair but they're so terribly developed that I don't even remember half of their names. I remember Mark Boone Junior as a character named Beau but I only remember him because of his role in Batman Begins. I remember Mark Rendall as Jake Oleson, Eben's younger brother, mainly because he's the only other baby-face around. I also remember his grandmother but that's only because it's revealed that she grows pot (I don't remember the character or the actor's name). The most memorable character other than the lead vampire is Ben Foster as the disturbed man who shows up and is locked in the town's jail because of the trouble he causes. He's interesting because he knows about the vampires and seems eager to join them. Where he came from and what he's connected to the vampires is an intriguing mystery that I wanted to know more about. I'd much rather he'd have been the main character.

As for the vampires, I thought the characterization of them was intriguing. Since vampires are often portrayed as sexy, seductive creatures, I commended the filmmakers for going back to the Nosferatu-style vampire and making them out and out monsters. Even though I don't care for 30 Days of Night, I wish it had been a much bigger success than it was since it could have spared us from the Twilight garbage that turned vampires into pasty, emo parodies. The vampires in this film are quite frightening for the most part. They act more like a pack of wild animals than anything else, which is a cool take. You can still kill them with sunlight but beheading them works too and, as always, if you're attacked by one and survive, you become one yourself. Don't know if crosses, holy water, and stakes through the heart work since the townspeople don't happen to have this stuff lying around but the general rules of the vampire are still followed in spite of the actual portrayal. Danny Huston as the lead vampire Marlow is memorable for his look and the fact that he speaks in an ancient language. I was originally going to blast this because I thought it was crap that the vampires have their own language when they're just undead humans and not a different species. But when I understood that Marlow is supposed to be ancient and is the only one to speak that language while the other vampires either just scream or speak English, I accepted it, although I wish they'd made that clearer in the actual movie instead of leaving it for me to find out later through research. And I do like the infamous moment where a trapped woman says, "Please, God" and Marlow coldly says, "No God." That was a nice moment.

While the take on vampires here is original, I'm afraid I'm going to have to poke a few holes in it as well. First off, whenever they attack someone, their crazy, sporadic movements and wild feasting on their victims' blood reminds me of the stuff you see in 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. Other than the mere fact that it's vampires instead of hyper-kinetic zombies, I just can't help but feel like I've seen this many times before and, therefore, can't get interested in it. Also, where the vampires came from is another good question. I commend them for not giving them an origin in an attempt to make them mysterious but when you think about it, these vampires have probably lived for centuries, right? So, why haven't they ever attacked Barrow before? If it's because they're not from Alaska, where did they come from and how did they get here? You see an abandoned ship at the very beginning of the film and Foster's character is looking at it, so is that where they came from? If so, how did they pilot this ship during the day-time? Finally, the vampires kill most of the townspeople on the first day and the rest of the film involves a handful of survivors taking shelter. What exactly are the vampires doing all this time? They've obviously got plenty of food left over since they killed a lot of people but what do they do when they're not using still-living people as bait to draw out the survivors, as they do in a couple of instances? It makes you wonder.

The pacing is another problem this movie has. The first twenty minutes or so are exciting when the vampires first make their presence known but once all but a select group of people are left and have to take shelter from the vampires, the movie drags horribly. There are long instances where nothing interesting happens and it doesn't help that this is one of those annoying movies where everyone talks so softly and quietly that you can barely hear them. Some may say that they whisper so the vampires won't here them but they talk that way even before the vampires come, which makes them more boring in my opinion. This movie is also way too long for its own good. While 113 minutes may seem like a fair length for a movie, it's not so good when you've got a movie that blows its load in the first twenty and drags for a good majority of the rest. Oh, and remember when I said that the basic story could keep it from falling into the "start/stop" formula of most vampires movies? Well, this movie manages to avoid that... and then, replaces it with another type of formula, this one being, "people hiding, vampire attack, people hiding, vampire attack" and on and on. It gets tiresome really quick and has you wishing it would just end, which is the sign of a bad movie. As for the vampire attacks, while they're nicely gory, they're shot in that frantic style where you can't tell what's going on for the most part, spoiling the build-up to them.

The music by Brian Reitzell is also a mixed bag. There are parts of it that I like, such as the opening theme and the atmospheric music that plays over the ending credits. I especially liked the music that plays when the vampires set fire to the town at the end and Oleson, with vampire blood running through his veins, marches down the center of the town for the final battle. But, as with everything else in this movie other than the visuals, most of the music is forgettable and just silently drones off in the background.

30 Days of Night just isn't my type of vampire movie. The visuals may be amazing but the rest of the movie is not appealing at all. The characters are bland as all get-out, Hartnett's acting is atrocious, the vampires, while initially cool, fall into the rut of feeling like rage zombies, the action scenes are choppy and hard to follow, the pacing is bad, most of the music is forgettable, and the movie's much longer than it should be. The only reason I even watched this a second time was in order to do this review because I couldn't remember a damn thing about it from the first time I watched it and that's not a good sign. If you like this movie, that's cool but as for me, when I want to watch a vampire movie, I'll stick with the Universal and Hammer Dracula movies along with Fright Night and Nosferatu, thank you very much.