Vampire Flicks: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010)

30 Days of Night was not a blockbuster, but it did gross $75 million on a budget of $30 million, and kicked off something off a mini-franchise. Before there was the actual sequel, there were two mini-series that aired on Fearnet: Blood Trails, a prequel that aired a month before the movie's release in October of 2007, and Dust to Dust, which aired in 2008, and both of which featured a character who never appears in either of the movies. Speaking of which, in 2010, the second comic mini-series was also adapted, although the studio clearly didn't have much faith in it, as it was made on a much lower budget and went straight to video. While I'd heard of those mini-series (at least the first one), I had no idea there was an actual movie sequel until I decided on this year's theme. Now, since I'm not the biggest fan of the first to begin with, the idea of a sequel didn't exactly thrill me, let alone one that didn't make it to theaters. So, when I first sat down to watch it, I could not have cared less and was only doing it out of obligation. It also didn't help that I hadn't seen the first movie since I initially did that review back in 2011, so I'd completely forgotten all but the basic story fundamentals. I didn't even remember if the lead here was the same actor who played Stella in the first (which she isn't). And ultimately, Dark Days proved to be what I expected: a typically mediocre, direct-to-video sequel, with decently-played but mostly flat characters, a generic visual style, obviously smaller production values, lots of really bad digital effects, a ho-hum climax, an awful ending, and a very weak villain. The story itself does have some potential, I do genuinely like Kiele Sanchez as Stella, as well as some of the characters, and there is plenty of gore and vampire carnage, but it's just so average and run-of-the-mill that it's difficult to really care, regardless of whether or not you like the first movie.

A year after the vampire siege on Barrow, Alaska, the town has since been rebuilt, but Stella Oleson has moved away. She's now touring the United States, giving lectures where she attempts to prove that vampires are real. While she's never able to convince anybody, doing so has made her a target of the hidden vampire population. Before one such lecture in Los Angeles, she receives a letter from a mysterious person known as Dane, who warns her that the vampires have followed her there. During the lecture, she says that she knows there are some in the audience, and proceeds to expose them by activating three powerful ultraviolet lights she has rigged in the lecture hall's ceiling. In the ensuing chaos, Stella is arrested and interrogated by Norris, an FBI agent, who's actually one of the vampires' human servants, making sure that their existence stays a secret. After telling her that no one will ever believe her, and that what happened will be dismissed as an elaborate hoax, she's released and goes back to her motel room, where she finds three people waiting for her: Paul, Amber, and Todd, vampire hunters who with Dane. They also tell her that, like her, they've each lost loved ones to the monsters and offer to have her join them. They're then forced to flee when a vampire appears at the motel, having been sent to kill Stella, but not before Paul splatters his brains across the wall. They drive to Dane's hideout, and on the way, the hunters tell Stella that their ultimate target is Lilith, the vampire queen, who orchestrates the others' every move. Arriving at the hideout, Stella is shocked to learn that Dane is himself a vampire, but because the wound that turned him was superficial, he's managed to hold onto his humanity. He then tells them of a nest Lilith has forged in some service tunnels beneath the city, and the hunters plan to infiltrate and kill her before she can escape. Stella is initially reluctant to join them, but after she talks with Paul, who tells her about how vampires killed his young daughter and ruined his life, and that Lilith orchestrated the attack on Barrow, she agrees. However, their infiltration of the nest doesn't go smoothly or without costs, and afterward, they eventually uncover a plot by Lilith to enact another polar night feeding in Alaska.

Like the first film, the comics' creator, Steve Niles, had a hand in writing the screenplay for Dark Days, as did the film's director, Ben Ketai. Ketai already had some experience with the 30 Days of Night IP, as he directed the mini-series Dust to Dust, and also wrote all but one of its six episodes. His other most notable genre contribution is in co-writing the second Strangers film, Prey at Night, along with the first film's director, Bryan Bertino. There's little else noteworthy about his filmography, as his other works as a writer and director are on a bunch of movies and TV shows that I've never heard of, save for his 2023 film, River Wild, and that's only because it's a remake of the movie from 1994 with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon (never seen it, though).

While she was promoting the first movie, Melissa George had expressed interest in returning for a potential sequel, but the producers say that scheduling conflicts ultimately kept that from happening. So, they instead went with Kiele Sanchez, whom I think I may actually like a little more than George, though that could be because I didn't think she had that much to do in the first movie. Here, as the protagonist, I think Stella ably carries the story. Having moved the greater United States after she lost Eben and nearly all of her friends in Barrow, she has since begun traveling across the country, giving lectures where she tries to convince people of what really happened there the year before and of the existence of vampires at large. Naturally, she often gets mocked and jeered at, and has also made herself a target of the vampire populace that secretly lives among mankind. As she goes on with her tours, she begins receiving help from the mysterious Dane, who, at the beginning, has tipped her off that vampires have followed her to Los Angeles. Thus, Stella, knowing there will be several in the audience, rigs three powerful ultraviolet lights up in the assembly hall's ceiling (how did she do that without anybody knowing?) and has them activated. It does succeed in exposing and disintegrating them, but it also leads to Stella being arrested and then interrogated by Agent Norris, who she learns is working with the vampires to help keep their existence a secret. After being threatened, she's released and sent back to her motel, where she finds the trio of Paul, Todd, and Amber waiting for her. Though they tell her they understand what she's been through and how it's destroyed her life, and offer her a chance to destroy the source of her pain, Stella is initially reluctant to join them in their hunt. Her uncertainty grows when she meets Dane and learn he's a vampire as well, as well as learns of their haphazard plan to just wander into a suspected nest and kill Lilith right then and there. But when Paul tells her that Lilith, in her sway over the vampires, orchestrated the attack on Barrow, she agrees to join them.

It's not an acting tour de force, but Sanchez's performance does convey how much the first movie's events have shattered Stella's life, to the point where she describes herself as, "Dead inside." As the movie's opening shows, she's since left Barrow, but has nightmares about what happened, and has been on a rather fruitless mission of exposing the vampires' existence to the world, mainly because she just wants someone to believe her. But, not only has that led to her getting laughed at, but now that the vampires have

begun targeting her, she feels she can never go back to Barrow for fear that she'll lead them back there. Thus, despite her initial hesitation, she opts to join the vampire hunters if it means destroying Lilith, whose actions led to her life being ruined. Her past experiences have also left her hardened and uncompromising when it comes to contending with vampires. When the hunters get trapped in the nest in the service tunnels, and Todd is bitten and turns, Paul is unable to kill his friend, prompting Stella to do it

herself, smashing his head to a pulp with a chunk of cinder block. Though she clearly didn't enjoy it, she tells Paul that he'd better get used to having to do it to an ally who's been turned. She also suggests that they wait until dark, when the vampires will go out to feed, before attempting to make their escape. This proves to be a good course of action, though they do run into one straggler on their way out. But, when they injure him, Stella opts to take him hostage and make him tell them where Lilith is, using her ultraviolet lamps as a torture device. While he doesn't tell them that, he

does reveal that the vampires are planning another attack on an Alaskan town during the polar night, which is in three days. Enraged at this, Stella almost kills him with the light, but Dane persuades her to let him go so they can follow him. He leads them to another nest, which they infiltrate the next day, and while they don't find Lilith, they do find a human prisoner named Jennifer, who later tells them where Lilith is.

Though she's grieving for Eben, Stella does eventually find something else to live for, when she and Paul form a bond, and even have sex. And after Jennifer leads them to the boatyard and the ship where Lilith is, the hunters board it in order to finally find and kill the vampire queen, while Jennifer is allowed to escape in their vehicle. Once they're onboard, the ship begins heading to Alaska, and not only is Amber killed, but Stella and Paul are captured and ordered bled dry. Stella manages to free both

herself and Paul, as well as kill Norris, who's now a vampire as well. But while they manage to sabotage the ship's engines, Lilith kills Paul, leaving Stella to face her on her own. But, through the whole movie, Stella proves to be really tough, not only knowledgeable about and adept at killing vampires, but also knowing how to handle herself with weapons and able to think on her feet. She also uses a painful injury she received during the skirmish in the second nest in order to slip her hand through the cuffs that 

bind her after she and Paul have been captured, and manages to both evade and then get the drop on Lilith in a pretty clever way. Once she's done so, she contacts the Coast Guard, despite admitting that she was content to just let herself drift through the ocean endlessly, given how she felt she had nothing left to lose. She also says that she considered seeking out others with a story like hers, which was how Dane and the vampire hunters found her, but, "I already knew one." Unfortunately, that leads into the movie's last scene, which has her do something really stupid, ending things on a sour note.

Of the three vampire hunters whom Stella joins up with, the one we get to know best is Paul (Rhys Coiro). When she first meets them, Paul is the one who assures her that they understand what she's going through, that he lost his daughter to the vampires three years earlier, up in Washington state. Moreover, after she initially refuses to help them infiltrate the nest beneath Los Angeles, the two of them have a heart-to-heart outside of Dane's hideout, where he, again, empathizes with Stella after she explains why she can't go back to Barrow. He notes, "Home is, uh, an unfamiliar concept," and says that he hasn't been back home since his daughter's death. He explains, "I... heard the window... shatter upstairs. I rushed back to her room. I saw him. I saw him there in the window and... he looked back at me. With those black eyes, hollow. Then, she was gone. Nobody believed me. Not the police, not my wife. Ex-wife, now. So, I kept moving, and always... listened... for a story like mine. That's how I found Todd and Amber. That's how we found you." This begins to form a bond, and he's able to get Stella to join them when he confirms that Lilith orchestrated the attack on Barrow. But, unlike Stella, Paul and his group have never had to kill one of their own who's been turned, and when Todd is bitten and changes, he's unable to go through with it, forcing Stella to. Unlike Amber, who's antagonistic towards Stella and questions everything she does, Paul is then willing to listen to her about what to do next, and takes part in the interrogation they put the one vampire through, asking him the questions. The next day, as they wait to infiltrate the second nest, Stella asks Paul what he plans to do once Lilith has been dealt with. He admits that he really had no other plans, and that he always intended to go back home and kill himself. He adds, "But I don't think like that anymore," saying that he'll just start his life over. We get a hint of what this new life could be when, after they infiltrate the nest, rescue Jennifer, and return to Dane's hideout, the two of them then have a tender moment that leads to them having sex. But during the climax onboard Lilith's ship, any chance they had of being together is destroyed when Lilith kills Paul.

Diora Baird, whom I remember as Bailey in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, plays Amber, who hunts the vampires because they killed her parents in Tulsa. Unfortunately, she's the most unlikable and annoying member of the group, mainly because she has a stick up her ass about Stella from the get-go. When Stella, upon just meeting them, is unsure about joining them, Amber writes her off as a waste of time. Then, while on their way to Dane's place afterward, she gives Stella crap for not knowing who Lilith is, sneering, "You really haven't done your homework, have you?" Stella asks what her problem is and she says, "I'm afraid you're gonna get us all killed." Ironically, when they infiltrate the first nest, she's the one who gets them attacked, as she panics and starts loudly jabbering about being too far away from the light and that this isn't how they do things, despite the others telling her to be quiet. After Stella has been forced to kill Todd, and Amber complains about her plan to wait until dark before they escape, Stella grumbles, "Can you try not to lose your shit and get another one of us killed?" Amber then pulls out a gun, puts it in Stella's face, and screams, "Well, fuck you! Everything was fine until you showed up!" Stella should've noted that they came to her, but instead, she just says that Amber would be doing her a favor by killing her. That, as well as Paul's intervention, prompts her to back off. Amber doesn't really let up afterward, and when they get onboard Lilith's ship, only to realize it's moving, she, again, panics and says they need to get off. She says they could jump off and swim back, and when Stella notes that hundreds of people will die when the ship gets to Alaska, Amber looks to Paul to back up her desire to run. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't, and they continue on. Granted, she does keep going with them, but doesn't last much longer, as after they find the captain, she's grabbed from behind, causing her to fatally shoot the captain, and is dragged down a corridor and fed upon. Paul, remembering Todd, puts Amber out of her misery before she can turn.

We don't get to know Todd (Harold Perrineau) too well, as he's killed off near the end of the first act, but he seems amicable enough. He mentions that the vampires took his fiancee in the middle of New Orleans, and as they're driving through the slums in Los Angeles, towards the nest, he notes how this place is far worse than where he grew up, but that a person will live anywhere as long as they're with someone they love. He then asks Stella what it's like in Barrow, and she hesitates before simply answering, "Cold." As they're breaking into the nest, Todd cuts his hand and flings the blood on the wall, its scent likely alerting the vampires' to their presence early on. Then, to compound the error, he gets mad and kicks down the piece of metal blocking the entrance, with Paul reminding him that they need to be quiet. But it's when Amber freaks out while they're deep in the nest that things go south for Todd, as they not only get attacked but he's badly bitten. After they manage to take shelter in one room, Todd is beginning to change. Feeling it, he begs for Paul to kill him, but Paul hesitates, hoping he can stave off losing himself to it like Dane managed to. This hesitation causes Todd to change fully and attack Paul, forcing Stella to finish him off by smashing his head with the cinder block.

The most interesting, and sadly underutilized, character for me is Dane (Ben Cotton). Not only did I not at all expect for him to turn out to be a vampire, but I thought it was interesting how, out of all the others, he somehow managed to keep himself from completely turning and is still holding onto his humanity. Even he doesn't know why, other than that the wound that changed him was superficial, and he's managed to keep a sense of himself by drinking blood from these hospital storage packs every night. You don't learn much else about his past, save for an old photo of him with his family, and whatever became of them is left unanswered. He tells Stella that he knew, like Paul, Todd, and Amber, she would want revenge on those who destroyed her life, which is why he began writing to her, knowing it would eventually lead her to him. Throughout the movie, Dane's vampire state comes in handy, as when the group becomes trapped in the service tunnels, he's able to enter after the other vampires have gone out to feed and rescues them. He's also able to sense a straggler that comes charging out of the dark at them, allowing them to get drop on him and take him back to the hideout. When the vampire won't reveal Lilith's whereabouts, despite being tortured with the UV lights, something that Dane already anticipated, he speaks with him in their primitive language and learns that they're planning to go back to Alaska for another month-long feeding soon. Though Stella is ready to fry the vampire completely after hearing this, Dane suggests they let him go and follow him, which leads them to another nest. This results in their rescuing the hostage, Jennifer, who manages to tell them where Lilith is. But before they can depart for the shipyard, Dane is killed when Agent Norris, now a vampire himself, finds their hideout and shoots him through the front door's peephole.

Speaking of Agent Norris (Troy Ruptash), he's this film's version of the Stranger from the first: a loyal human servant to the vampires, known as a "bug-eater" (an obvious reference to Renfield). Deathly-ill from some sort of disease that causes him to cough up blood, he uses his position as an FBI agent to interrogate Stella following the stunt she pulled at her latest lecture. He first tells her that what happened will be written off as an elaborate hoax by "a very sick woman," but when Stella doesn't back down, he switches off the CCTV camera and reveals who he really is, growling, "You're a thorn in my side, Stella Oleson. If it were up to me, I'd choke you with my bare hands and bury you in the fuckin' desert! Others, however, feel that would draw too much attention." He then lets her go, and after she meets up with the vampire hunters at her motel, and they're attacked by one vampire sent to kill her, Norris arrives on the scene. He has to detain a pair of witnesses who see the vampire's corpse lying in the doorway to Stella's room, which he later reports to Lilith personally. But when he's then asked what became of Stella, he lies and says he managed to scare her off with his threats. Lilith, able to sense that he's full of it, has him punished for his lies. However, he later figures out where Dane's hideout is, and Lilith tells him to go there and take care of things. With his disease worsening, Norris asks that he finally be made into a vampire, but she first has him prove how far he's willing to go for it. He does so in an appalling way, as he literally bites into Stacey, the captive girl's, neck, tearing out a chunk of flesh, and then bites further into her wound until she's dead, which satisfies Lilith. Afterward, he appears at Dane's hideout as a full-on vampire, shooting him through the peephole. While the others manage to escape him, when Stella and Paul are captured aboard the ship, Norris is tasked with stringing them up and bleeding them. Then, just to be extra sadistic, he forces Stella to watch as he slices open Paul's arm first. But, unfortunately for Norris, Stella manages to free herself and, after a struggle, impales him through the eye with a hooked chain and chops his head off.

Katharine Isabelle, the star of the Ginger Snaps movies, has a brief role here as Stacey, the young woman who, along with her boyfriend, Clyde (James Pizzinato), are initially just having a fun time in the motel room next door to Stella's. But after the commotion with the vampire sent to kill her, Stacey and Clyde end up seeing too much and are abducted by Norris and taken to Lilith's ship. Stacey is then restrained and forced to watch as Lilith slowly rips one of Clyde's teeth out, then sucks the blood that

streams out of the socket, killing him. Later, Stacey has the misfortune of being the one whom Norris kills in order to prove himself worthy of becoming a vampire, and screams in absolute agony and terror, making it even more disturbing to watch. Another hostage, Jennifer (Katie Keating), whom the vampire hunters find in the second nest in the city, proves to be much more significant in the story. Upon being rescued, she later tells them how she and some others were abducted and brought onto a ship, and while she's not sure, she says she thinks Lilith stays on the

ship at all times. She's also able to give them an idea of where it is, and when they head to the shipyard after Norris shows up at the hideout, they allow Jennifer to escape in their car, while they board the ship.

Now here's a weird coincidence: the first time we actually see Lilith (Mia Kirshner), she's bathing in a bathtub-filled with blood. We're never shown whether or not this keeps her young and full of life but still, yet again, we not only have another sequel that differentiates itself by making the main vampire a woman but, like Fright Night 2: New Blood, she evokes imagery of Elizabeth Bathory (though, this did come first). In any case, Lilith, despite being touted as the all-powerful vampire queen who controls their every action, makes for a pretty lackluster villain. Since we're not in a polar night this time, it does make sense why she's not out and getting her hands dirty the way Marlow was, and instead, stays aboard the ship for the entire movie. But, that said, up until the climax, she doesn't much of anything, except when she rips out Clyde's tooth and drinks his blood, and personally makes Norris into a vampire with her own blood. Mostly, she just hangs out in the background and acts as a great-scope villain, being the one behind the attack on Barrow, as well as wanting to ensure that Stella is dealt with. And when Stella, Paul, and Amber board the ship and confront the captain, he reveals that Lilith has threatened his family's safety if he doesn't take the vampires to Wainwright, Alaska for another month-long feeding frenzy. During the climax, the only significant thing she does is kill Paul after he and Stella have managed to sabotage the engines, and then stalk Stella through the bowels of the ship, taunting her with what happened in Barrow, specifically Eben's death. And when she catches up to Stella, Lilith just throws her around a bit, before Stella hides in her own bathtub of blood in order to surprise her and then decapitates her.

As you can see, Regine and Gerri Dandridge from both of the Fright Night sequels were far more formidable main villain than Lilith. They try to make her come off as intimidating with how much they build her up as this queen who has all the other vampires under her beck and call, as well as her introductory scene where she emerges from the bloody bathtub while listening to an old gramophone, slowly approaching Norris as he lies to her face, and when she slowly kills Clyde, but like I said, she 

doesn't have any of the same impact as Marlow. And furthermore, what should've been the thing that made her and Stella's confrontation at the end pack a dramatic punch, that she's the architect behind Stella's pain, both in the past and currently, when she kills Paul, carries no weight at all. You'd think it would, especially when Lilith taunts her after she kills Paul, asking if it feels the same as it did when Eben died in her arms, but the whole thing comes off completely empty. I do kind of like Kirshner's performance in 

the scene where Norris asks to be made into a vampire, as she motions for him to prove his dedication by simply saying, "Show me," but that's me really stretching for something truly positive to say.

You've likely already gleaned from the images you've seen so far that this movie has that generic, low budget look that you so often get in direct-to-video movies. It has that washed out palette that's been color-corrected to where the visuals are primarily a mixture of either ugly tans, like in Stella's motel room, or grays, as in the scenes onboard the ship, and it's made all the worse when the movie flashes back to the better-looking first one, which is actually what much of its opening consists of (they do themselves even less favors by using that traveling overhead shot 

of the initial massacre). These flashbacks also include a really bad-looking shot of Stella standing in front of Eben's grave in Barrow, with some very fake digital snow falling and gray, overcast sky in the background (the first of many awful digital effects the movie has to offer). The scenes set in the vampire nests are effectively dark, with the only light source often being the vampire hunters' flashlights, and the shots of the vampires running out of the darkness, at the camera, are okay, but nothing amazing. As for the cinematography and direction, it's mostly just

adequate. You do get some nice overhead shots of Los Angeles and the slummy neighborhoods where the nests are located, similar to the ones of Barrow previously; memorable tight close-ups on characters' faces, like the push in on Stella before she exposes the vampires in her lecture's audience, and Lilith when she walks up to the camera after emerging from the bloody bathtub; and a bit of non-linear editing where you hear Paul telling Stella of his plans for after they manage to kill Lilith while you're watching them

infiltrate that second nest, but again, I'm really grasping for something notable to talk about. I will say, though, that, until it's revealed as such during the third act, I never guessed that Lilith's lair was onboard a ship. And, while the camerawork is still often handheld and jittery, and the editing fast-paced, the action scenes are easier to make out than they were in the first movie.

Even though it's set in Los Angeles, try and guess where the movie was actually shot. Yep, Canada, specifically Vancouver. Even so, with the locations they used and the way it looks, I can buy this as L.A., and I also think it made for a nice change of setting from the first movie in general, going from constant night, snow, and ice to bright sunlight and warm temperatures. We don't really get into the actual major city portions of L.A. but I think these crappy-looking, ghetto neighborhoods, with rundown houses and seedy motels like the one Stella stays at early on, are 

a good enough setting for this story. However, the specific locations are nothing to write home about, with Dane's hideout being little more than a storage building filled with lots of research material, as well as a small fridge where he keeps the hospital packs of blood he feeds on, a hidden armory behind a sliding false section of wall, an illuminated table, and a room in the back where Stella and Paul end up having sex. We also see two vampire nests, one of which is in a series of long abandoned tunnels beneath the city 

(according the IMDB trivia page, these were actually in the basement of an abandoned mental asylum), with this one room the hunters take cover in, and another in this abandoned building, which has various humans that are being kept alive to be fed upon. And finally, there are the interiors of the ship during the climax, which also has several chambers housing people meant to be fed upon. The most notable part of the ship, however, is Lilith's chamber, surrounded by pipes, with a shaft of light coming down through the ceiling, and housing her bathtub of blood and a gramophone that she often listens to.

While I did like how, and, when all is said and done, prefer that they were kept mysterious in the first movie, I also find it fascinating that we learn a bit more about the vampires here, specifically their hierarchy, with Lilith being the queen whom all of them obey, meaning that Marlow, in theory, was her "lieutenant," if you will, for the attack on Barrow (I don't particularly like that idea, though, since it hurts Marlow's effectiveness, given how much he seemed like not only a clan leader but one who has held that position for centuries). We also learn that vampires 

are spread throughout the world, living among the regular human populace, feeding whenever the need arises, and that they did specifically target Barrow because of the polar night, which they now seem prepared to do annually, with their next target being the city of Wainwright. Much like the mob, they don't take kindly to someone attempting to expose their activities, regardless of how successful they may or may not be at it, and they also coerce people into doing what they want, like the ship captain who says they threatened his in order to make him take them to

Wainwright. Speaking of the mob, the way they have an FBI agent working for them feels like something out of a mob flick, and the vampires themselves often dress in black suits and outfits, and wear dark sunglasses, that could potentially make you think of gangster bodyguards (as well as Cenobites, especially some of Lilith's female subordinates). Agent Norris himself also confirms that the vampires have a number of human familiars, or "bug-eaters," and all 

of them likely serve in exchange for the promise of immortality and other abilities they'll inherit by being made into vampires themselves. And unlike Marlow, Lilith is much more amenable in granting Norris' wish when he proves his worth.

In general, the vampires feel much more organized and less rabid and crazy than before, like Lilith's subordinates, as well as the vampire from the one nest the group takes back to Dane's hideout to interrogate. Speaking of which, the concept of "nests" is one that wasn't alluded to in the first movie (save for the possibility that the vampires were aboard the ship at the beginning), and I do like how they could be in the most innocuous places in human areas that no one really thinks about, like old service tunnels or an abandoned warehouse, to name a few. What's most

disturbing about the nests is how the vampires keep around their human victims, both those they've killed and others who are still alive, to be used as sustenance and even full on feeding stations. Jennifer talks about being taken aboard the ship for that reason, and when Stella, Paul, and Amber search its bowels during the climax, they find a couple of such stations, one of which is being fed the blood of a dead child. Beyond that, they find a large room full of bodies hanging by hooks from the ceiling, including one old woman who's still alive and hoarsely begs for Amber to kill her.

The specifics of becoming a vampire are a lot muddier this time around. First, Dane proves that it is possible to retain some semblance of one's humanity, mainly if the injury that turned you wasn't that serious. Again, he himself admits that he doesn't know exactly how or why it happened, but you do see that, as long as you have a steady supply of blood to feed on, you can keep yourself from becoming the wild feral monsters that are under Lilith's sway, while also making use of their abilities and heightened senses, and gaining the ability to speak their

language. But, that in and of itself makes things more unclear, as some of the vampires, like Lilith's highest subordinates, are also composed and in control, able to pass themselves off as humans and even speak, both in the species' own langue and human speech, whereas before, it seemed like Marlow was the only one capable of that. Moreover, once he's turned, Norris just seems to be a more sadistic and violent version of the terrible person he already was. But after Todd is bitten down in the tunnels, he slowly and painfully transforms in the same manner as many of 

those bitten in the first movie (building on something I mentioned before, Todd says he can literally feel his humanity going), and then becomes wild, feral, and attacks Paul, with Stella having to put him down. The nature of this wasn't always consistent before, either, with how long it took some to change as opposed to others, how much longer Eben in particular managed to keep his senses, and how that little girl vampire in the store was able to speak before she attacked the group, but here, it feels like it takes the route that's

most convenient for any given moment. All the vampires' powers and weaknesses established in the first movie are carried over here, as well as the addition of their being able to resurrect from the dead if human blood is dripped into their corpses' open mouths (at least, if they didn't get beheaded). Not a trope that's alien to vampires at all, but that leads to the movie's uninspired and predictable ending, which I'll get into shortly. Also, like zombies, it seems as though vampires can now be killed with heavy blows or shots to the head, as happens to Dane and the vampire assassin early on.

Like the first film, there is blood aplenty here, but unfortunately, a number of kills are augmented with crappy digital work. There is still some good practical work, though, like when the vampire hunters enter the nest beneath Los Angeles and find the decapitated body hanging from the ceiling; Todd gets his throat bitten into; Stella has to crush his head when he becomes a vampire, smashing it into a bloody pulp; Clyde's tooth is yanked out by Lilith; Stacey gets her neck bitten into and ripped out in a big chunk by Norris; the grisly sight of a fried vampire corpse and

the bodies of past victims housed onboard the ship; Amber being fed upon by two vampires; Norris getting the hook in his eye; and Lilith biting into Paul's neck. There's also a lot of work done with simple blood effects, like Lilith biting into her wrist in order to change Norris, Paul getting his arm cut into by Norris, and Stella doing the same to herself during the ending. But, there are times where the blood doesn't look all that great, like when Dane takes a drink during his first scene (it looks exactly like

what it really was: cranberry and grapefruit juice mixed together), and Lilith's bloody bathtub, which often looks more like chocolate sauce, and isn't as striking as it would be in similar scenes in Fright Night 2: New Blood, or even in past movies, such as Hammer's Countess Dracula.

Not counting the use of stock footage from the first movie during the opening, you see some of the dire digital work before you get to anything practical, like the vampires burning in the lecture hall when Stella turns the UV lights on them, the one vampire assassin jumping down off a roof across from Amber, and the really awful shot of his head getting blown away by being shot multiple times at point blank range, splattering a lot of blood on the wall behind him, but not a single bullet-hole. I think there is some practical stuff mixed in there, but the abundance of awful 

digital effects could cause you to miss it. That bad burning effect is reused later, like when they burn the captured vampire with the UV lights and when Stella exposes those in the second nest to the sunlight outside. But, as bad as that looks, the horrific CGI used for the vampire they bring back to life onboard the ship rivals it. Again, I think they did use some practical shots mixed in, but the CGI would probably cause you not to notice it. There are also a number of

digital bullet wounds and blood splatters in the action scenes, and some awful decapitations, particularly Lilith's, and that's to say nothing of the bad environmental effects, like these fake-looking storm clouds that roll in at one point, that shot of Stella in front of Eben's grave, and a similar scene when she returns to Barrow at the very end.

Unlike the slower-paced first movie, Dark Days kind of hits the ground running, starting up with a montage of clips from the first, and transitions into an opening credits sequence that alludes to Stella's flight from Barrow and her being stalked by vampires in a surreal, somewhat abstract manner. It doesn't really let up from there, as it quickly gets into her first lecture, where she exposes several vampires in the audience with the powerful UV lights she's set up, and following her interrogation by Agent Norris, she

meets Paul, Amber, and Todd at her motel. A vampire assassin shows up to take care of her, but the hunters get the drop on him when he tries to burst into the room, only for Todd to use his foot to pin his head in the door, while Paul blasts it into oblivion with two handguns at point-blank range. With that, the four of them get out of dodge and head to Dane's hideout, while Norris arrives and quickly detains the young couple of Stacey and Clyde when they come upon the vampire's body in the doorway. Not too long after

that, we get into the movie's first major sequence, where the vampire hunters enter the nest beneath the city, only for Amber's stupid ass to panic, leading them to get swarmed from all sides. One vampire that pops up behind Amber immediately gets blasted away, but that's when another grabs Todd from behind, pins him to the floor, and bites into his neck. Stella and Paul fend off more that come screeching out of the dark, as well as fire upon the one that attacked Todd, but only manage to send her running. They then fire on hordes coming at them from every

direction, but when they start running low on ammo, Paul helps Todd up, and they and Amber run for safety, while Stella fends off other vampires with the last shells she has in her shotgun. When that runs out, she takes out a handgun and continues firing. The others find that the path leading back outside is cut off, so Amber leads them into a room behind a steel door, with Stella showing up and joining them in there. That's when they're faced with the dilemma of having to kill Todd when he begins to turn, only for Paul to hesitate and find himself unable to do so

because he's his friend. It nearly gets him killed when Todd fully turns and attacks, forcing Stella to kill him herself. Later, Dane shows up and helps them escape the nest, though they run into one vampire left there as a guard. They manage to incapacitate him, and then, Stella, rather than cutting his head off, instead decides to bring him back to the hideout to interrogate him.

When the interrogation yields no clues as to Lilith's whereabouts, they let the vampire go and follow him to another nest, which they infiltrate the next day. There, they find the woman named Jennifer, who awakens when they inspect her and begs for help. They get attacked by another swarm of vampires, with one jumping on Amber from above, causing her to fall and lose the detonator to the explosives they rigged outside the nest's entrance. It quickly turns into a standoff, with the three hunters standing in 

formation and firing upon a big group of vampires that come at them one after the other. Stella then gets a nice idea and shoots a hole in the building's tin ceiling, allowing in a beam of sunlight. The others follow suit, creating enough beams of light to hold the vampires back, but they're so many of them that they're not going to be able to hold out forever. That's when Stella spots the detonator lying on the floor nearby and quickly runs and jumps for it. She grabs it and hits the button, blowing open the wall just as one 

vampire is about to lunge for her. He's blown back and then, he and the others are exposed to the sunlight, promptly disintegrating (and forcing the audience to sit through more of those awful visual effects). Following a sudden white screen, and some flashbacks to the first movie, as well as a slightly redone version of the ending, Stella wakes up in the aftermath of the explosion. She and the others promptly leave and head back to Dane's hideout. Later, as they talk with Jennifer, who tells them about Lilith's ship, there's a banging on the door. Dane 

walks to it and looks through the peephole, only to get shot through the eye and out the back of the head (I have a feeling they took that from Dario Argento's Opera, but it was done so much more strikingly there). Everyone flees out the backdoor, as the door is kicked open by the now vampiric Agent Norris. He chases them out to the alleyway behind the building, where he and Paul exchange shots as the vampire hunters pile into a vehicle. Norris gets shot and falls to the ground, allowing them to drive off, but he just gets back up and smiles when he looks down at the bullet-holes, reveling in the power being a vampire affords him.

Upon arriving at the shipyard and boarding the one ship when Jennifer recognizes it, the three of them witness a vampire being resurrected when some human blood is dripped down his corpse's open mouth. They then make their way to the navigation room, where they find the ship's captain at the helm. Upon making him explain himself, Amber gets grabbed from behind and dragged out of the room, causing her to accidentally shoot and kill the captain. Stella and Paul chase after her, only to come upon the

grisly sight of two vampires feeding on her. With no other recourse, Paul shoots and puts her out of her misery, angering the vampires and causing them to screech at him and Stella. In seconds, they find themselves surrounded, including by Norris, and since they don't have enough bullets to deal with all of them, they consider killing themselves. But they're grabbed from behind, and come face-to-face with Lilith, who orders them drained of their blood. Norris is tasked with doing this and takes sadistic pleasure in

stringing them up, putting the blood collection tubs near their feet, and then cutting into Paul's arm, forcing Stella to watch. However, Stella, manages to wrench her hand free using the dislocated finger she received earlier and kicks Norris in the face. He lunges at her, but she wraps her legs around his head and, in their struggling, she falls to the floor. Enraged, he grabs her leg, pulls her across the floor, and punches her right in the face, before pulling her up to her feet and decking her again. She grabs onto one of the hanging hooks for support and gets him in the eye

when he comes at her again. And as he struggles to wrench it out, she grabs an axe and decapitates him, leaving his head hanging on the hook while his headless body collapses to the floor. Stella uses the axe to cut Paul loose, and manages to wrap his arm tight enough to steam the bleeding. She hands him the axe, while she takes the blade Norris was using, and tells him they need to stop the ship.

They head down to the engine room and, since neither of them knows exactly how the engines work, they just start smashing the controls with their weapons. They manage to stop the ship in the middle of the ocean, but just when they think they can celebrate, Lilith appears behind Paul. He turns around and she grabs him, slams him against a control panel, and bites into his neck, as Stella watches helplessly. Lilith wrenches her head back, with Paul's blood around her mouth, and Stella runs into the bowels of the ship.

Hearing Lilith's echoing voice taunt her, she moves to make her way around a corner, only to see the vampire queen nearby, calling for her. She quickly slips back around the corner and tries to sneak off to the other side, when, in a jump-scare anyone can see coming, Lilith appears in front of her and throws her against some pipes. She proceeds to toss her around the room, slamming her into walls and other groups of pipes, and then tosses her to the floor. Stella runs out of there and finds her way into the chamber 

housing Lilith's bloody bathtub, with the gramophone playing. She hears Lilith approaching, telling her that she can smell her blood, and then looks up at the bars directly above the tub. Lilith enters the room and walks through it, towards the tub, searching for Stella. Looking at the tub, she sees some dripping on the blood's surface and looks up at the same pipes that Stella did, which have fresh, bloody hand-prints dripping from them. But, just when she thinks Stella may have climbed up there, she emerges from the blood with a yell and decapitates her in two swings 

(again, the horrendous digital work here really undercuts the moment). As Stella stands in the tub, a group of Lilith's subordinates enter the room. Stella steps out of the tub (a shot that nicely mirrors when Lilith's legs stepped out of it in her introductory scene) and walks towards them, expecting another fight. But, instead, the vampires clear the way, allowing her to walk through the door without any harassment. She walks back to the navigation room, dropping the blade on the floor as she goes, and stands in front of the helm, as the Coast Guard can be 

heard attempting to contact the ship over the radio. In her narration, Stella says that she could've just let the ship continue drifting. But, ultimately, she decided to radio back, and adds that what was found on the ship was never reported to the media or the public at large.

Now, we get to the ending, and while I don't know if this is how the comic of Dark Days ends, it, nonetheless, basically rips off the conclusion to Pet Sematary. Having returned home to Barrow, Stella digs up Eben's corpse, takes him back to the house she's living in (probably the one they shared when they were married), and, wearing her wedding ring around her neck, cuts her hand with a razor and drips the blood into the charred corpse's mouth. She doesn't get an immediate reaction like she saw on the ship, 

so she cuts herself all the more, along her arm, and drips the blood onto the corpse. Still, nothing happens, and she becomes distraught, before passing out on the floor next to the corpse. Some time passes, indicated by a shot of a clock-face, and the blood streams out of her wounds, soaking into her carpet. In a shot that, I'll admit, is well done, you see a shadow pass over her as she lies there, and she slowly awakens to find Eben (Stephen Huszar, who looks nothing like Josh Hartnett, and whose face they 

were smart enough to keep hidden before) standing in front of her, fully resurrected. Overjoyed to have him back, she embraces Eben, only for him to have, naturally, been reborn as a vampire, biting into her neck as the movie ends. Not only is this derivative and lame, but it makes Stella look so dumb, as she should've known he would be a vampire when brought back to life, seeing as how he died as one. You may argue that, like Louis Creed in Pet Sematary, grief and a way to bring a loved one back blinded her to the truth, but it was infinitely more 

effective there, whereas this is built upon a relationship that wasn't even that strong or compelling to begin with. Even as effective as Sanchez is at portraying how emotionally dead Stella became after what happened in the first movie, then allowed herself to love again, only to lose Paul and become further devastated and, thus, desperate, it still doesn't make this as effective as they intended.

I said that I initially wasn't too impressed with the first movie's score but, upon doing that revision, I grew to appreciate it; well, that's not the case with the score here, courtesy of Venezuelan composer Andres Boulton, who'd also scored the Dust to Dust mini-series, and whose filmography also includes such "gems" as The Dog Who Saved Christmas (as well as the various sequels to that) and Jersey Shore Shark Attack. In fact, his music for Dark Days is how I originally described the first movie's: generic and completely forgettable. Other than the over the top, hard rock theme for the opening and ending credits, which itself is nothing that amazing, I can't remember anything else from the score, as it's the kind of music that drops out of your head the minute the movie is over. In fact, the only other music that left any sort of impact with me is the classical music Lilith listens to on her gramophone, and even the details of that have long since left me.

I apologize if this review came off as half-hearted and rushed, but 30 Days of Night: Dark Days is another one of those sequels that did not need to exist. While it does benefit from a pretty good performance by Kiele Sanchez as Stella, as well as some fair performances from most of the rest of the cast, action sequences that aren't as kinetic and hard to make out as those in the first movie, a serviceable new setting, some interesting new details about the vampires, some well done makeup effects, and a faster pace and

shorter running time, nothing about it feels all that inspired. The visual style is bland and unappealing, the direction is just average, the characters themselves are pretty flat, despite the good acting, the locations are mostly so-so, there are a ton of crappy visual effects, some of which hurt what could've been some memorably gory moments if they'd been done 100% in camera, the music score is almost completely forgettable, and the ending is predictable and derivative. It's not insufferably bad, and if we're going by the other direct-to-video sequels we've looked at, I would say it's better than Lost Boys: The Tribe, as much of a low bar as that is. But, unless you're the biggest fan of the comics or of vampires, I'd recommend you skip this. And if you're a fan of the first movie, seeing this isn't going to add that much to it.