Vampire Flicks: 30 Days of Night (2007)

For me, this came completely out of left-field. Not being a comic book person, I never knew this concept and story was even a thing until the movie was released in October of 2007 and I saw some commercial spots for it. And from what I could see, it seemed fairly promising. Not only did the vampires look genuinely scary and the visuals quite stunning, but the idea of a town in Alaska that's besieged by vampires just as they're entering a month-long period of darkness was both brilliant and just plain awesome. Still, I didn't see it in the theater, and I wouldn't at all until around Halloween of 2010, when I found the Blu-Ray cheap at Wal-Mart. I specifically made a point of watching it on Blu-Ray, as it already had a reputation for being visually stunning, and I knew that kind of high-def would bring it out in spades. And, indeed, it was very eye-catching, thanks to the snowy setting and the overall visual style. Unfortunately, that's one of the few major compliments I can give it. In fact, when I first did this review, I was so tempted to make it an edition of Movies That Suck due to how utterly empty I felt by the time that first viewing was over. But, upon watching it a second time, I decided not to, as I didn't think it was that bad, and after watching it again for the first time in years in order to do this revision, I would say it's just okay, albeit still a prime example of all style and no substance. I still really like the setting and visuals, there are some good production values to be found here, the film does have some effective instances of atmosphere about it, the vampires are quite frightening due to how utterly feral and animalistic they are, there are plenty of brutal deaths and grisly makeup effects, and the music score, while nothing amazing, does its job well enough. However, I find the characters to be extremely bland and forgettable, and despite how much the movie wants me to, I couldn't care less about the two leads and their character dynamics. On top of that, the cinematography and editing during the attack and action scenes are often very shaky, kinetic, and disorienting; and once the vampires have taken over the town, the rest of the movie becomes very repetitive, as the survivors move from one bit of shelter to the next, with attack scenes in-between.

Barrow, Alaska, a fairly large but isolated town, and the northernmost one in the United States, is approaching its annual month-long polar night. On the last day of light, a mysterious stranger, having arrived from a cargo ship just offshore, slips into town. Later, the young sheriff, Eben Oleson, and his deputy, Billy Kitka, find a small pile of burned satellite phones in the snow. Unbeknownst to Eben, his estranged wife, Stella, is in town on fire marshal duty, but plans to leave before darkness sets in. As sunset approaches, someone brutally kills John and Ally Riis' dogs, and on the way to the airport, Stella crashes her vehicle. Though she's not hurt, she's unable to drive on to the airport, and reluctantly calls Eben. He has Billy drive her to the airport, but it's closed by the time they arrive, leaving her stranded for the next month. Upon returning to the police station, Eben learns that Carter Davies and Wilson Bulosan have called from the Utilidor station to report a case of vandalism. Arriving there, he learns that the innards of Wilson's helicopter, the only one in town, have been thrown into the Utilidor's pump gears. Elsewhere, at the communications center, Gus, the man who runs it, is lured outside and attacked by a group of ferocious, bloodthirsty people who act more like animals. Then, at the local diner, Eben, with Stella's help, arrests the Stranger after he threatens the diner's owner, Lucy Ikos. They take him to the station, where Eben's younger brother, Jake, and their grandmother, Helen, are. Once he's locked up in a cell, the Stranger taunts them, saying that something major is about to happen, and that, "They're coming." Sure enough, the computer and phone system go down, followed by the town's power supply. And with that, Barrow is attacked by those whom the Stranger was referring to: a clan of ferocious vampires, who ruthlessly slaughter and feed on most of the populace. Now, Eben, Stella, Jake, and a small group must try to survive the month of complete darkness, while avoiding and fending off the monsters as they relentlessly hunt them.

Again, 30 Days of Night began as a comic book, created by writer Steve Niles, who'd previously worked for companies and creators like Eclipse Comics, Clive Barker, and Todd McFarlane, writing several issues of Spawn for the latter. Some sources say that when he wrote 30 Days of Night, he always intended it to be a movie, while others say it started out as a comic book, but then Niles tried to pitch it as a movie; either way, he shelved it for a time when it got rejected by Hollywood. It did get published as a comic in 2002 by IDW, and once it did, studios became more receptive towards it. In the end, Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert became interested in adapting it, and after Senator International successfully acquired the right, they would produce it, along with Columbia Pictures, through their new production company, Ghost House Pictures, which had recently done the American version of The Grudge. Niles was commissioned to write the screenplay, though his initial draft was rewritten by Australian writer Stuart Beattie, who had a hand in writing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and would also write the screenplay that would become the Michael Mann film, Collateral. And then, when David Slade was hired as director, he brought in another screenwriter, Brian Nelson, whom he'd worked with before, to write another draft. In the end, Niles, Beattie, and Nelson all got credit on the final movie.

I've read there was some talk of Sam Raimi directing 30 Days of Night himself, but in the end, he opted to act as producer, along with Robert Tapert (probably because, during this time, he was busy with his Spider-Man movies). Again, they ultimately went with English-born David Slade, who'd previously directed a number of music videos and a British commercial for Silent Hill, and had also just made his feature directorial debut with 2005's Hard Candy. I've never seen that film but I've heard a lot of good things about it, as well as that it's very hard to watch (and given its subject matter, it doesn't sound like my kind of movie, anyway). When it came to 30 Days of Night, Slade said he simply wanted it to be a truly scary vampire movie, which, in an interview with zap2it.com, he said he didn't think there were many of, naming Nosferatu and Salem's Lot as some examples. Ironically, after this movie, which some might see as something of an antidote to the Twilight movies (although that film series wouldn't begin until the following year, the first three novels had already been published by this time), Slade would on to direct the third one, Eclipse. I have heard that one's a bit more violent than the other Twilights, but still. Despite that movie being a huge success, in the years since, his feature directing career has kind of floundered, although he has found more success in television, directing episodes of Breaking Bad, Hannibal, and Black Mirror, among others.

One of the movie's biggest faults for me are the characters, as I find them to be some of the most bland and hollow people I've ever been expected to care about in any movie, let alone a horror movie. Honestly, most of the actors are okay, but their roles are either so poorly developed or just plain forgettable that I tend to forget both their names and faces. No joke, well into the movie, I completely forgot about a good majority of the characters, and then I'd see some of them and say to myself, "Oh, yeah, they're here." And when I was looking back on it as I was preparing this revision, I was reminded of some things that I complete forgot but should've remembered, especially seeing as how I had just watched it again beforehand. I really can't say if that's bad screenwriting or a sign that the original comic wasn't that great to begin with (David Slade once said that Brian Nelson's draft was the most faithful, so make of that what you will). But, as decent as most of the actors are, I can't say the same for the two leads, who are anything but charismatic. 

Easily one of the movie's weakest aspects is Josh Hartnett as Sheriff Eben Oleson. I remember when I first did this review, a friend of mine referred to Hartnett as a "black hole of charisma," and that's definitely the truth here. While I haven't seen much else that he's well-known for, mainly because stuff like Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, 40 Days and 40 Nights, and The Black Dahlia doesn't grab me, I actually thought he was decent in Halloween H20 (I also remember liking O, but I don't really remember him in it). But here? Nuh-uh. He is so monotone, wooden, and uninteresting that, I remember the first time I watched this movie, I almost fell asleep because of him. Now, I will cut him some slack, as I read he was sick with mono for the first two weeks of filming, which had to have been rough. And I get that he's trying to portray Eben as a regular guy who's caught up in horrific circumstances and is just barely keeping it together, while also having to lead those who are left to safety, but he doesn't have the charisma to keep me engaged with him. He is clearly someone who's going through a rough time, as not only is his relationship with his wife, Stella, on the rocks (he learns that she was in Barrow for a little while but he never knew, and is disappointed that she didn't look him up so they could talk about their problems), but, the day before the month-long polar night, he has to deal with a bunch of seemingly random and bizarre incidents. And, to his credit, it doesn't take him long to realize what kind of trouble they're really in, as shortly after he arrests the Stranger, who keeps talking about how, "They're coming," the town's power supply goes out. He then drives to the communications center, where he finds Gus slaughtered, his severed head on a pike. Eben and Stella then try to make their way to the pipeline, only to get ambushed by one of the vampires, and when they return to the station, they find it's been ransacked, with both Eben's grandmother, Helen, and younger brother, Jake, missing. Eben learns that the latter managed to escape and then, he, Stella, Jake, and the other survivors begin running and hiding through the town, trying to stay alive while avoiding the vampires. 

This may not be a fair criticism, but I've always found it hard to believe that this guy, who's not even thirty, and, in fact, looks even younger, is the town sheriff. I'm not saying someone that young can't be sheriff, but Eben looks and feels more like a deputy to me. In any case, I will say that Hartnett does manage to show some emotion, like when he's horrified and downright shaken after finding Gus' decapitated head, and genuinely scared when he and Stella first encounter the vampires. His best bit of acting, however, comes when they find his deputy, Billy Kitka, and learn that 

he murdered his family to keep them from being slaughtered by the vampires. Distraught, Eben angrily pins Billy to the floor, tearfully yelling, "You have a family! You don't ever hurt them! Ever!" And Eben does do some genuinely brave things, like when, at one point, he distracts the vampires so the others can make it to safety, and when he attempts to save some stragglers outside of the main group. And, at the end, he injects himself with some tainted blood in order to become a vampire and battle the clan's leader in 

order to save Stella and a young girl she's rescued. Of course, now that he's a vampire, he's also forced to make the ultimate sacrifice at the end of the movie in order to keep both the town and his loved ones safe. But, again, I can't bring myself to really care that much because of what an uninteresting character Eben is. (Oh, yeah, and he has asthma, which I tend to forget because it rarely comes up, and at one point when it seems like it's going to become an issue, it's almost immediately dropped.)

I also don't care much for Melissa George as Eben's estranged wife, Stella. Granted, she does have more of a personality to her, but she's still about as bland of a character as Eben. Plus, not only do Hartnett and George have no chemistry, but the subplot of their marital issues is so meaningless. For one, we're told practically nothing about why they're having problems. At one point, Stella alludes to it possibly being because Eben didn't want kids, but that's about all of the concrete insight we ever get. Much earlier, she murmurs that there's a lot to it, but we're never told what, exactly. Did one of them cheat on the other? Did she get pregnant, have a miscarriage, and things went south for their relationship after that, or did he maybe push her to an abortion? Or did she just get sick of living out in the middle of nowhere? And even if it does all stem from Eben not wanting any kids, if you want me to care, you've got to give me something to chew on. 

Because of their problems, whatever they may be, Stella is clearly not happy about being stuck in Barrow for the polar night, especially with Eben nearby. But the thing is, that conflict quickly becomes moot when the shit hits the fan. In fact, while their initial interactions, both on a cellphone and in person, are far from warm, Stella sticks by Eben when things go sideways and is always willing to help him in any way she can, be it in dealing with the frightened townspeople, contending with the vampires, or trying to figure out what to do next. That is commendable on

her part, considering, but it doesn't make me care about her even more. And by the time the climax rolls around, they've reconciled to the point where Eben is willing to turn himself into a vampire himself in order to save her, something you don't buy since all they've been doing this whole time is either hiding from or fighting off the vampires. Some may say they made up during the time jumps in the story, or that the situation itself is what brought them together again, but that doesn't cut it with me. They also come up with an arbitrary reason for Stella to need Eben's help

in the first place: during the start of the third act, as they're trying to get Billy to the police station, then to the Utilidor, Gail Robbins, this catatonic little girl with blood all over her face, shows up out of nowhere (there was a scene depicting her family getting killed but it was cut), and Stella goes to save her. This leads to them getting trapped beneath a wrecked vehicle on the street, and when the vampires start burning the town down, there's no other way for Eben to save them, as they'll get attacked if they try to run. They

also try to make the actual ending scene poignant when, after having killed Marlow and driven away the other vampires, Eben dies in Stella's arms when the sun comes up. Sorry, but that means nothing when you've given me so little reason to care.

Out of all the townspeople, the one I remember the most is Beau, the snowplow operator. One reason for that is because he's played by Mark Boone Junior, an actor I've seen in numerous movies (including another vampire movie, John Carpenter's Vampires). Another is because the character is rather likable. In his first scene, when Eben writes him up because his truck is leaking fuel into the street, Beau, naturally, isn't too thrilled and feels that Eben is just singling him out. After Eben walks back to his car upon giving him his ticket, Beau grumbles, "Yeah, I'll add it to my collection." Despite this initial bit of antagonism, he comes to Eben and Stella's rescue with his snowplow when the two of them are getting attacked by the vampires after their car has been overturned by them. He then joins them and the others in the abandoned house they take refuge in, and while he remains cynical, he's among the more reasonable members of the group. When Eben and another man named Doug come close to getting into a fight, Beau breaks it up and quietly calls Doug stupid for starting it. And later, when Eben is outside, trying to save two other townspeople, Beau tries to go out and help, but Stella manages to convince him that the survivors need him more. He also has a line that I can't help but like when they discuss using one of Helen's ultraviolet lights at her greenhouse against the vampires: "Just 'cause something stopped Bela Lugosi doesn't mean it can stop these things." And, when Eben gets trapped after proving the ultraviolet light can damage them, Beau comes to the rescue again with his plow, running over and skewering a number of them with a long, rotating blade attached to its front, as well as booby-trapping the plow's rear with bear traps (which one vampire gets caught in, leading to him being dragged behind the plow) and blowing away some other vampires with a shotgun. The distraction he causes gives Eben the opportunity to slip away but, unfortunately, Beau's attempt to destroy a bunch of vampires by blowing himself up along with them doesn't work. Instead of dying, he's badly burned, and Marlow finishes him off.

Jake (Mark Rendall), Eben's younger brother, is memorable mostly because he's the only other baby-face amid the cast. He's introduced just hanging around the police station, along with his and Eben's grandmother, Helen Munson (Elizabeth McRae), who works as the dispatch operator, bored out of his mind. Speaking of Helen, you eventually learn that she grows pot out in her greenhouse, supposedly for medicinal purposes. Eben learns this when he stumbles upon some of it in a desk drawer and initially thinks it's Jake's, but Helen immediately 

admits to it being hers, saying, "Didn't tell you I got a little greenhouse at home. Didn't want you arrestin' me." Eben then tells Jake, "Now I know why you wanted to go live with Grandma," and Jake, in turn, gives the lame excuse, "I just though you and Stella oughta have some privacy." When things start to turn ominous, with the Stranger talking about the vampires' arrival, Jake gets spooked by it. And when he won't stop going on about it, saying that he wonders who will be taken first, Jake, who's playing a board game with Stella and Helen to pass the time, gets aggravated and throws one of the pieces at him. This leads to the Stranger almost killing him, when he claims he could use the piece to pick the cell's lock and Jake goes to stop him, only to get grabbed by the throat through the bars. Fortunately for him, his brother returns and shoots the Stranger in the arm. Later, when Eben and Stella return to the station after getting attacked, they find a lot of blood, but no traces of Jake or Helen. However, when they meet up with everyone at Lucy's diner, they learn that Helen was killed, but Jake survived. 

Notably, Jake is the only character who suggests the monsters are vampires, when he talks about how he watched them feed on Helen. The idea is initially dismissed, but they soon realize that is the case. For the rest of the movie, Jake is mainly just one of the group, though he does have a couple of noteworthy moments, like when he's forced to be the one to kill a young girl vampire at the general store by chopping her head off, which severely traumatizes him. Despite this, he initially volunteers to be the one to distract the vampires so everyone else can get to the police

station, but when Eben asks if he's willing to have to kill again, he backs down. However, during the climax, he manages to get Denise and Lucy safely to the Utilidor. But then, he tearfully watches his brother inject himself with tainted blood in order to become a vampire and fight Marlow, after Eben has asked him to look after Stella. When he overhears Denise and Lucy wondering if they should kill Eben before he can attack them, Jake yells at them to back off, that no one is going to touch him.

The only other survivors are Denise (Amber Sainsbury), who works at the oil pipeline, and Lucy Ikos (Elizabeth Hawthorne), who owns and runs the diner. The latter is introduced first, having to deal with the Stranger when he's sitting at the counter and becomes irritated when she, first, turns down his asking for alcohol, then for some raw hamburger meat. He grabs her hand and becomes threatening, but Eben is able to make him let her go and arrests him shortly afterward. Denise is introduced shortly afterward, when she has a couple of her coworkers 

hitting on her and she playfully teases them, only for one of the guys to suddenly get attacked. When his brutalized body is dropped in front of them, Denise runs for it (leaving the other guy to his fate!) and meets up with the other survivors at the diner. Later, she suggests they go take refuge in Charlie Kelso's boarded up house, which they do. And there, Lucy manages to handle Wilson Bulosan's old, dementia-riddled father when he wakes up raving, threatening to get them caught. They don't do anything else that noteworthy, as they're mainly just two other members of the group, and the only other women aside from Stella, but, again, they manage to survive the month.

Deputy Billy Kitka (Manu Bennett) initially seems like he's going to be a fairly major supporting character, as he's with Eben in their first scene, when they find the fried satellite phones in the snow. He jokes, "Maybe someone got a little upset about their roaming charges," and then, as he and Eben watch the sun setting in the distance, he tells him that he brought his wife, Peggy, there on their first date. Eben comments that everyone in Barrow did that, and Billy adds, "Last sunset in a month. It always works." There is an interesting dichotomy there: not only is Billy more laid back than Eben but, more significantly, he seems to have a very happy family life. He wishes the same for his friend, and so, when he's tasked with running Stella to the airport, only for her to miss her flight, Billy, after offering to let her stay with him and his family, tells her, "Of course, the price of stayin' at my place is to explain to me and Peggy just what the heck is wrong with you and Eben." 

But after that, Billy disappears and isn't seen again until the third act, when the others have taken shelter in the police station. Seeing him signalling to them with a flashlight through his house's upstairs bedroom window, Eben and Stella rush over there. But they're then horrified to find that he killed his wife and kids in order to keep them from suffering the same fate as everyone else. He tells them, "I tried to shoot myself too. The fucking gun jammed," then adds, "I shouldn't have signaled to you. I just couldn't stand being on my own." Despite how enraged and distraught Eben

is over what he's done, he and Stella bring Billy along when they head back to the station, and then to the Utilidor, only for the three of them to get separated when Stella attempts to save Gail Robbins. Billy actually panics and runs off at the sight of another vampire, but makes his way to the Utilidor, where everyone else meets up. But upon arriving, he's attacked and bitten by the vampire Arvin. Eben comes to his rescue and, together, they manage to kill Arvin by grinding him up in the pump gears. But Billy loses

his right hand in the scuffle, and when he starts to become a vampire himself, Eben is forced to kill him by nearly decapitating him. Significantly, it's his tainted blood that Eben later injects himself with in order to take on Marlow and the other vampires.

Here's a prime example of how unmemorable the characters in this movie tend to be. When Eben first goes out to the Utilidor to investigate some vandalism, he meets up with the guy who runs the place, Carter Davies (Nathaniel Lees), as well as Wilson Bulosan (Craig Hall), who pilots the town's one helicopter. Like the other survivors, the two of them meet up at the diner when the vampires begin their attack and then stick it out with the others for a time. Carter lasts much longer than Wilson, all the way to when the group takes cover in the police station late in the story. However, he reveals that he was bitten by the little vampire girl they ran into at the general store and is starting to turn. In fact, he was turning earlier, when they were still holed up in the store, and tried to kill himself without the others knowing by surreptitiously suggesting that someone could create a distraction so the others can make it to the police station. But, before he could volunteer, Stella brought up the idea about the UV light and Eben opted to do it himself. In any case, Carter still has some humanity left at this point, and hearkens back to a very brief, fleeting moment in the first scene at the Utilidor, where Eben noted a picture of his wife and kids, who lived elsewhere, and asked if they couldn't just come up to Barrow to live with him. Carter simply said, "They'll come when they're ready, I guess," and nothing more was made of it. But, as he's changing, he tells them, "That photo's all I've got left of my family. Martha was taking the kids to visit her mom. They were hit... by a drunk driver. I wanted to be with them so much. I... I couldn't bring myself to do it. But I know they're waiting for me." Noting the sad irony that he's now, more or less, immortal, he pleads, "I can't live forever. I can't. Eben. Don't let me." Eben then grants his request for mercy and kills him outside, where he kills him with an axe. That would've been a lot more touching if they'd focused more on the photograph or if he'd talked about his family more, but it was mentioned so briefly that it had fallen out of my head by the time the movie got to this point.

As for Wilson, besides being angry that his helicopter, which he says was his whole life, has been destroyed, his defining bit of character is taking care of his old and dementia-riddled father, Isaac (Chic Littlewood). Isaac's condition and confused raving often threaten to put the rest of the survivors in danger, like when he wakes up in the attic, yelling for his wife, who's been dead for years. At one point, he tries to slip out of the attic and the house, intending to walk to the city of Wainwright, despite it being 80 miles away. Wilson and Stella manage to stop him and he has a

breakdown, before seeming to collect himself. He asks to use the bathroom, but when they let him, he ends up climbing  out the window. Wilson is intent on going after him, and while Stella tries to stop him, he knocks her back, causing her to whack her head on a small table. Issac is never seen again, while Wilson is ambushed and killed by Arvin while out searching for him. However, the truth is, I completely forgot that Wilson was both the helicopter pilot and the guy taking care of his senile father. In fact, I thought Wilson later showed back up as a vampire and Eben had to kill him.

It turns out that the character I was thinking of up above was John Riis (Peter Feeney) who, along with his wife, Ally (Min Windle), call Eben early on when their dogs are horrifically butchered. While John is just left shaken and disturbed by this, Ally is out for blood, declaring that she'll kill those who were responsible. That night, as she and John are still trying to process what happened, Arvin crashes into the kitchen, which is where Ally is, and rips her out of the house. John comes running in time to see this and chases them outside, where Ally is dragged beneath 

another building. John tries to save her, but gets slashed across the face for his trouble, while Ally is dragged through the snow and then shoved beneath another building. Again, John tries to save her, but gets slashed in the leg this time, and watches as his wife is dragged away to her. Later, while trying to save Kirsten Toomey when the vampires have her surrounded out on the street, Eben sees John hiding beneath a building and comes to his aid. But he then finds out that he's become a vampire himself, and is eventually forced to kill him when reasoning with him doesn't work.

Kirsten Toomey (Camille Keenan) may be a very minor character, but I always remember the main scene featuring her, where she's wandering the empty streets of Barrow, yelling for help. It turns out the vampires were using her as bait to lure out the others, and when she's confronted by Marlow, it's revealed that she was doing it willingly, in a desperate attempt to save herself. This leads into a moment I always remembered from the TV spots, where Kirsten falls to her knees in the snow, whimpering, "Please, God," and Marlow tells her, "No God." After that, she's

slowly tortured and then ripped to pieces by the vampires. And finally, you have Doug Hertz (Joel Tobeck), who's notable for being the one member of the main group who's somewhat antagonistic. He starts out fine enough, and is the first to note that there's something possibly supernatural about their attackers, talking about how bullets don't kill them (although he tries to explain it away as their being on PCP). But when they're stuck in the attic, he becomes desperate and suggests they just make a run for it, saying that some may die but others may make it. This leads to a scuffle between him and Eben after Jake calls him out on this and he shoves him. However, Doug makes this same argument again when Eben is outside, attempting to save Kirsten, but, despite his attitude, he manages to survive up to when Eben runs to Helen's greenhouse. As they're running for the police station, he's jumped and fed upon by a female vampire.

Before the vampires make their presence known, we get this mysterious character, known only as the Stranger (Ben Foster), who, at the very beginning, just suddenly appears on the icy shore near Barrow, having seemingly arrived thanks to a cargo ship moored offshore. Following this, the next time you see the Stranger is when he's at the bar in Lucy's diner. Becoming agitated when Lucy won't give him neither the booze nor raw meat he asks for, he becomes agitated and grabs her wrist. Before he can do anything else, Eben shows up and backs him down. Still, when Eben then tries to make him step outside, the Stranger gets obstinate and threatening, and it takes both Eben and Stella to get him out of the diner and into the patrol car. They take him to the police station, where he spends the rest of his screentime locked up in a cell. He refuses to say who he is or where he's from, but when the first signs of the attack start coming in, he taunts them, telling them they're unprepared and have no chance against what's about to happen, saying, "They're comin'." He adds, "This time, they're gonna take me with them... honor me. Yeah. For all that I have done." Just when Eben asks who "they" are, the town's power goes out, and he goes to check on Gus at the communications center. While they're gone, the Stranger's taunting gets the better of Jake, who ends up in his grasp and is nearly killed, before Eben returns and shoots him in the arm. Cuffing his hands behind his back and around one of the bars, Eben demands to know what's going on and who killed Gus, but the Stranger says, "You're a dead man... I don't talk to dead men. I don't talk to dead men!... You're all dead!" He stays handcuffed to the bars for the rest of his screentime.

All you ever really learn about the Stranger is that he's sort of a Renfield character, as he's loyal to the vampires, particularly Marlow, and comes in and sabotages the town's various means of communication and escape in order to make the citizens easy prey. Again, who he is, where he came from, and how he became connected to the vampires is an intriguing mystery that's left unanswered, but one thing's for sure: he's eager to become one himself, and thinks he'll be rewarded for what he's done by being turned. However, when the vampires attack the station 

offscreen, leading to Helen's death, the Stranger is distraught that they just left him handcuffed to the bars. He then asks Eben to kill him, but despite Eben's temptation, Stella talks him out of it and they leave the Stranger there. Following the massacre of much of the town, Marlow walks into the police station and enters the cell. As he stands in front of him, the Stranger whimpers like a little kid, as Marlow acts as though he's going to keep his end of the bargain, telling him, "We will take care of you." But instead, he breaks his neck.

Though he doesn't have a lot of actual dialogue, when he does speak in his ancient dialect, Marlow (Danny Huston) displays a seething disdain for mankind. Before he kills the Stranger, he growls, "The things they believe," and when Beau fails to destroy the vampires in his suicide attempt, Marlow, before crushing his skull, says, "When man meets a force he can't destroy, he destroys himself. What a plague you are." He's also quite manipulative, not only in how he gets the Stranger to come in and sabotage the town before they attack, but also in how he forces Kirsten to try to lure out the other survivors. He's a real sadist as well, commenting on how easy Barrow will be to take down, "We should have come here ages ago," and, as he and Iris are slaughtering a family, tells the husband, "There is no escape. No hope. Only hunger and pain." Then, of course, there's the moment where he cruelly mocks Kirsten's pleas towards God, repeating the word, then looking around and glancing up at the sky, before looking back at her and telling her, "No God." At the end of the movie, Marlow plans to wipe out all traces of their existence by breaking into the oil pipeline, filling up the streets, and then lighting a match, setting the town ablaze. This is foreshadowed earlier, when he says, "It took centuries for us to make them believe we were only bad dreams. We cannot give them reason to suspect. Destroy them all." He's actually amused when Eben, whom he first glimpsed early on, shows up to fight him, but when he realizes in the midst of their fight that Eben made himself into a vampire, he comes off as utterly disgusted and offended, as if he feels he's not worthy of it. In the end, despite how formidable of an opponent he proves to be, Marlow underestimates Eben, leading him to suffer his own gruesome death.

Among the other notable vampires is Iris (Megan Franich), who appears to be Marlow's lover or mate. She doesn't have that many standout moments or scenes, but she does prove to be seemingly even more ferocious than him, like in the scene where, after Marlow gives the okay, she brutally slaughters the mother of that family, then screeches with blood all over her mouth, and when she watches with pleasure when Marlow kills the Stranger in the police station. She also ends up being the one who proves the vampires are vulnerable to ultraviolet light, as Eben

blasts her with it when she breaks down the door to Helen's home. This leaves her badly burned and writhing in pain, forcing Marlow to exact a mercy kill. Another is Arvin (Andrew Stehlin), this extremely ferocious, bald-headed vampire who takes Ally Riis, kills Wilson Bulosan (as well as, presumably, his dad), is among those who slaughter Kirsten once she's served her purpose, and attacks and bites Billy, before getting thrown into the Utilidor's gears. And finally, when the group is in the general 

market, they run across this little girl (Abbey-May Wakefield) while she's busy biting into someone's neck (possibly her mother; and what's worse, she's revealed to still be alive at that moment). She then stops, says, "I'm done playing with this one," and, turning to face Stella and Beau, asks, "You want to play with me now?", before screeching at them. In the ensuing scuffle, she runs around like a little screeching banshee, before being pinned against the wall with several of them, as Jake finishes her off with the axe. Killing her really shakes the others, and none of them even know who she was. And later, it's revealed that, while struggling with Carter during the skirmish, she scratched and infected him.

What 30 Days of Night had going for it from its original conception was the basic concept and setting. As has been proven many times, cold, snowy settings, in general, often make for great horror films and thrillers because of the inherent sense of isolation and claustrophobia they evoke, which is multiplied all the more when you add in the polar night phenomenon. But going even further and combining that idea with vampires is truly like a match made in hell. Not only does it dispense with that sort of "stop/start" formula 

that vampire movies often run into, since they have to avoid sunlight, but it also means that there's now definitely no escape, as the ongoing darkness means you will be constantly running and hiding, trying to avoid these ferocious monsters' keen senses, as well as trying to keep from freezing to death. And as if that weren't enough, there's the possibility that your friends and loved ones will be turned into vampires and become another threat, as does happen here. So, this concept has great potential... if the story is told well and the characters memorable, that is, which is where I feel this movie drops the ball.

Like I said in the introduction, director David Slade does bring a great visual style, which many have, understandably, compared to the looks of John Carpenter's The Thing and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. That's especially true of the opening, set in the dwindling hours of daytime before the polar night sets in, which looks really beautiful. You have various wide shots of the snow-covered landscape and the horizon, with the sun setting in the distance, with a very nice example of the latter being when Eben and

Billy watch it in their first scene. And while I normally complain about digital color timing and grading, this is an instance where I feel what they did really works with the mood they're trying to create. The color starts out bright enough, but seems to slowly drain the darker it gets (as also happens to the Columbia Pictures logo at the very beginning), with the wide shots of Barrow itself looking increasingly gloomy. Then, when night does set in, it takes on a very inky quality, with lots of blues and grays in the palette. It kind of looks like a black and white movie 

that was done in color, if that makes any sense, and while I've never seen any images of it, I have a feeling this might've been Slade's way of adapting the look of the comic.

As far as Slade's direction and the cinematography by Jo Willems are concerned, they do compose some memorable images, like the eerie shot of the ship just offshore during the opening scene; the Stranger standing in the middle of his jail cell, perfectly centered in the frame, after the town's power has been sabotaged and the emergency generator has kicked on; one of the vampires appearing in silhouette while he's on top of Eben's police car, trying to get at him and Stella; many of the shots of the entire vampire 

clan, be it when Marlow stands at the center of them, speaking, or whenever they're making their way down the street; and finally, the various shots of the town burning during the climax, with special mention going to that one of all of the vampires watching. For me, the absolute best bits of cinematography come during the vampires' massacre of the town, where you have various overhead shots of the chaos, including a tracking shot at the end of the sequence. However, that also leads me into a major problem I have with the visual style: this is one of those movies where the 

many action sequences are shot handheld, with a lot of shaky camerawork, as well as some very fast, kinetic editing, often making it hard to tell what's going on. If you've been around here long enough, you know how much I hate that. There are also a number of non-action shots where the camera is handheld and moving around, which hardly ever works for me, either.

A lot of the credit for the movie's visual strengths not only go to Slade and his crew, but also Weta FX. Despite its setting, it was actually shot entirely in New Zealand, specifically in Auckland and Otago, and during the spring and summer, to boot. They built two sets for the town itself in Hobsonville: one in a field (a number of the exterior night shots are actually some of the best day-for-night cinematography that's ever been done), and another in an abandoned aerodome, which was for the many exteriors that 

emphasized the snow. In addition, some scenes, like the opening in the snowfield, the shots of the sun setting, and the sunrise at the end, were done at the Waiorau Snow Farm in Otago, with Weta later providing the surrounding environmental details. There are also some shots where they extended the town digitally, and in that overhead shot of the main attack, they added in both human victims and vampires to increase the scale. While most of this work is seamless, others, like the characters' breath, 

the instances of snowy wind, and the full-on snowstorm that envelops the town a little over halfway in, are more obvious. Still, for the most part, I was able to buy that this really was a town in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, and the filmmakers do manage to create a real feeling of isolation and fear with it. There are a number of shots of the town following the main attack, after the vampires have killed nearly all of the populace, where it really looks like an abandoned ghost town, with not a living soul on the streets, and the sole sound mostly being that of

the wind. But the most effective and truly unnerving bit of atmosphere for me is when, shortly after the main group has taken shelter in the abandoned attic, they can hear the sounds of gunshots and people screaming in the distance. It's brief, but haunting, regardless.

Aside from the extreme surrounding environment and the sense of isolation, Barrow itself is portrayed as a pretty average town in the United States. Though it's actually fairly large, considering, because it's so remote, its airport is extremely small, with possibly only one or two planes, as well as one sole helicopter, and a good chunk of the populace leaves when the polar night comes around each year. Most of the houses are built several feet above the ground (which is actually the case in the real town of Barrow, in 

order to keep them from sitting on the permafrost), which ends up providing hiding places for the vampires to ambush their victims, as well as spots to drag them to their doom as well. They and other installations are fed oil by pipelines near the outskirts, while the nearby communications center provides phone and computer service, and the Utilidor provides electricity. And while a good number of the townspeople live really close to each other, others are far more isolated. The homes that get a fair amount of 

focus, such as the Riis house and property, with their dog kennels, Billy Kitka's home, and Charlie Kelso's boarded up house, where the group initially seeks shelter, all come off as nice, comfortable, middle class homes, making scenes such as Marlow and Iris slaughtering the one family and the revelation that Billy killed his own all the more jarring. Lucy's diner also looks and feels like a typical local eatery, and is not only where Eben arrests the Stranger, but also where he tells everyone whose house doesn't have a generator to go when he first realizes something 

serious is happening. The same also goes for the general store, where the survivors hunker down in the office for a little while, and the police station, which is really robbed of its sense of normalcy and security due to all the bloodshed that happens there. Other than the communications center, manned by Gus, which features in just a couple of scenes, the only other major installation in Barrow is the Utilidor, which basically acts as both the town's power and sewage treatment station. You'd expect the claustrophobic tunnels and corridors leading to and

from the building to be the site of a vampire attack, but instead, the most significant area here is the room housing the gears, as it's where both Arvin and Billy meet extremely bloody ends, and where Eben injects himself with the latter's tainted blood.

The movie's portrayal of vampires was quite unique for the time, given how, right up to the modern era, they've often been portrayed as either sexy and seductive or, like in The Lost Boys, cool. These vampires, however, are like if you took those in John Carpenter's Vampires, which were already pretty feral and deadly, and made them into full-on savage monsters, often coming off more like a pack of intelligent but still wild and ferocious animals than anything else. They don't turn into bats and can't 

actually fly, but that doesn't matter, as they're very strong, fast, and agile, able to jump great distances and nimbly climb around like wild cats, and are absolutely bloodthirsty, ferociously attacking and tearing into their victims' necks, as well as beheading them in order to keep them from becoming vampires as well. They mostly just shriek and roar, although Marlow speaks to them in a primitive language. I was originally going to criticize this, as I thought it didn't make sense for them to have their own language, given how they're human in origin. But then, I 

understood that, one, Marlow, given some of his dialogue, is implied to be ancient, as well as possibly the first vampire of all, and two, this is when vampires had transitioned from their classic portrayal as undead, cursed humans to something more like a completely different species. When some of the characters fully become vampires after being bitten, they seem to lose the ability to speak, suggesting this this infection or whatever it is reverts the brain to this primitive state. Also, Marlow proves a couple of times that he can speak English, suggesting he's been around long enough to not only develop a way of communicating with his fellow vampires, but to learn various human languages as well.

Design-wise, their look is pretty simple. At first glance, they seem like normal people, albeit with really pale skin, but when in close-up, you can see they have dark eyes, long claws, and mouths full of sharp teeth, instead of just fangs. Some of them also have more monstrous facial features than others, like Iris and Arvin. And as far as the familiar tropes go, one that definitely applies is that they're vulnerable to sunlight, but they can also be injured by ultraviolet light and killed by beheading. That said, Ally Riis is 

wearing a crucifix when she gets attacked and it doesn't deter Arvin at all, so I think we can assume that holy water wouldn't work either. However, the other general rule that does apply is that you become a vampire yourself if you survive an attack by one. This is portrayed in a pretty unsettling manner, as you can both see and hear the victims gradually losing their humanity, in their movements and deepening voices, and it's something they're aware of, too. They can feel the growing effects of the spreading vampirism, such as a gnawing hunger or thirst, as 

John Riis and Carter Davies mention, as well as the ability to smell other people's blood, as Eben notes when he turns at the end. You also sometimes see them trying to fight the change from taking over completely, as Eben does after injecting himself (and it looks painful, as well). What's really disturbing, in that respect, is that little girl in the general store, who retains the ability to speak, despite having been fully turned for some time, given how long she's been gnawing on that person's neck, as if her newfound vampire instincts are speaking with her last shred of humanity.

I used to complain about how little you learn about the vampires, including where they came from, why they never attacked Barrow before, or even how they got there. Upon re-watching it, I realized that Marlow himself mentions that they should've come to Barrow a long time ago, and can also now really appreciate the filmmakers keeping them mysterious. At the most, you could assume that they were onboard the cargo ship you see offshore at the very beginning, waiting for both the Stranger to thoroughly sabotage 

the town and for the polar night to begin; otherwise, they are a complete mystery, and as they do to Barrow at the end, they've likely burned down other places they've attacked, as well as completely killed the populace, to keep their existence from being exposed to the world at large. I also complained about how you don't know exactly what the vampires are doing during the long periods where the survivors are holed up in a makeshift shelter or when they're not using still-living people as bait to draw out the survivors. But, while I do still kind of wonder about that, I now feel that was a cave of me being overly nitpicky and just looking for something to complain about.

As much as I do like their portrayal, I do have one real issue with the vampires. I don't know if the filmmakers considered this or not, but their crazy, sporadic movements, and the scenes of them running after and then wildly feasting on their victims' blood, as people try to fight off big packs of them with shotguns and sharp objects, reminds me of similar attack scenes in movies like the 28 Days Later series (the second of which came out the same year as this) and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake. I do 

like those movies, of course, but while watching 30 Days of Night, it feels like I've seen this kind of thing before, with the only difference being the mere fact that it's vampires instead of hyper-kinetic zombies or infected people. Maybe if the vampires actually had flown a little bit or had something more unique about them, they would've come off as even more original than they already were.

At the time, this could've been considered one of the goriest vampire movies ever, and it's still pretty grisly even by today's standards, with the blood really standing out amongst the otherwise muted colors. If you're sensitive towards animal violence, though, you might not like the first fifteen minutes, as you see quick flashes of the Riis' dogs getting butchered, and the grisly aftermath when Eben is called out there to investigate. The first human death, that of Gus, is a brief taste of the bloodbath that's about to unfold, as 

one vampire pins him to the ground and rips his neck open, leaving a big, ugly, blood-gushing wound. The same also goes for Gabe, one of the pipeline workers who gets attacked while flirting with Denise, and the bloody aftermath of the vampires' offscreen attack on the police station. But once they begin attacking in earnest, you get a whole lot of carnage, starting with Marlow and Iris attacking a couple in their house, followed by the major attack on the town. There, and throughout the movie as a whole, you get numerous

shots of throats that have either been ripped open or are in the process of being bitten into, and both human and vampire heads being either partially or completely severed, as well as more specific, but no less grisly, moments like Arvin getting ground up in the Utilidor's gears, Billy losing much of his right arm in them, Eben having to take an axe to his neck when he starts to change (in post, they had to really emphasize that Billy was becoming a vampire by putting in an inhuman screech, as the MPAA would've hit them with an NC-17 otherwise;

ironically, they had no problem with the little girl vampire in the store); and Eben killing Marlow by impaling him through the mouth and out the back of his head with his arm. Granted, that last one doesn't look too great because of all the digital work done on it, but they smartly had it onscreen only for a split-second.

One moment of death that I really like is when Eben and Stella discover that Billy killed his family, as it's merely suggested, with just a shot of the bed-sheet covering their bodies, making it all the more horrifying than any graphic images they could've shown. (The studio actually made them take that scene out at first, despite the confusion it caused when Billy now suddenly showed up in the third act, with no explanation. It took the results of a test screening and David Slade really pushing for it in 

order for the scene to be put back in.) Unfortunately, the movie ends on a really awful-looking digital effect, as Eben is destroyed by the rising sun, his head becoming like charred paper, with blackened bits blowing off into the wind, while he's being cradled in Stella's arms. At first, this was achieved through a makeup appliance on Josh Hartnett (one that's said to have taken seven hours to apply), but Slade didn't like the way it came out, so Weta added that awful-looking digital work in post. I can't imagine that the makeup looked worse than that, can you?

Getting back to my major problems with the movie, aside from my not really caring about the characters, I also really don't like the uneven pacing. That especially sucks because the first 45 minutes are very well done. You have the gradual buildup to the vampires, with Eben investigating the strange occurrences throughout the day, particularly the dogs being killed, and the scene where Gus is lured out of the communications center when he hears something, with quick flashes of the vampires running by or lurking in the background behind him. Then, he finds 

himself surrounded, as the vampires screech and growl at him, before one pins him to the ground and rips into his throat. Not long after that, we get the moment at the pipeline, where Denise is with the two guys, when Gabe is suddenly grabbed and pulled into the darkness, before being dropped from high above. Denise runs off, while the other guy, Aaron, doesn't see the vampires emerging from the darkness behind him. Then, Eben goes out to the communications station, finds Gus' severed head on a pike, and heads

back to town, warning everyone to either get in their homes or, if they don't have a generator, meet up at Lucy's diner. That's followed by Ally Riis being taken by Arvin, with her husband being unable to save her, and Eben and Stella getting attacked by another vampire while out in Eben's patrol vehicle. It's a short sequence, with the vampire running up behind them and climbing up onto their vehicle's roof, before attempting to punch his way through, and Stella slamming the brakes, flinging him off, and then running him over, but it's an effective one. 

Following that and their discovery of the aftermath of the vampires attacking the police station, the shit really hits the fan, as we see Marlow and Iris kill this family, with Marlow grabbing the husband, pinning him up against the wall, and stabbing him with a fireplace poker, while Iris breaks the wife's arm and tears into her throat. All hell breaks loose, as we see the main attack on the town, with people getting jumped either from above or behind, dragged away or fed upon right there in the street, vampires either invading houses or pulling people out through the

windows, and people desperately trying to defend themselves with guns and other weapons. After Eben and Stella meet up with everyone at the diner, and Eben sends everyone else to Charlie Kelso's boarded up house so they can hide in the attic, he and Stella go to load up with possible weapons. But, on the way, they're ambushed by the vampires, who manage to flip their car over from the back end, onto its roof. Just as the vampires are preparing to drag them out of the vehicle and rip into them, Beau comes in on his

snowplow, impaling several on the actual plow and crushing them against the side of a building. In the ensuing chaos, Eben and Stella manage to scramble out of the flipped over vehicle, join Beau in the snowplow's cab, and escape with him. They head over to the Kelso house, break into it, and join the others up in the attic.

But, this is when the movie begins to both drag horribly and develop a rather irritating pattern for the remainder of its running time. Remember when I said the use of the polar night could relieve it of the "start/stop" formula of most vampire movies? Well, it instead adopts a variation on that formula: rather than night/vampire, day/no vampire, it becomes, people hiding, vampire attack, people hiding, vampire attack. I've heard this was a plot-point from the comic that they greatly expanded upon, but I think they went overboard with it. First, you have everyone hiding in 

the attic, then, when they see that the vampires are ransacking every house, they plan to go to the general store, get supplies, and head to the Utilidor, using the next blizzard that comes through for cover. However, when they see the vampires using Kirsten Toomey as bait, Eben tries to save her, but is unable to. He then finds and tries to save John Riis, but is instead forced to kill him when he sees that he's now a vampire himself, chopping his head off when he gets caught up in a swing-set. Eben runs back to the Kelso house, and shortly after that, Isaac Bulosan breaks out of the 

house to try to head to Wainwright, with Wilson chasing after him. Arvin briefly enters the house, with Eben and Stella hiding from him, but he then hears Wilson outside, calling for Issac, and goes after him, managing to catch and kill him. Everyone else goes back into the attic, and after a brief scare when they hear a vampire on the house's roof, only for the sound to stop, they then make their way to the general store. There, they run into the little girl vampire, and have to fend her off and finally decapitate her, before 

taking shelter in the manager's office when the storm ends. It goes on from there, with Eben running for Hannah's house to see if the vampires are vulnerable to ultraviolet light, creating a distraction so everyone else can make it to the police station, and with Beau coming to his rescue and sacrificing himself so he can make it back to the station as well. And after that, Eben and Stella find Billy, the three of them get separated when Stella goes to rescue little Gail Robbins, and Eben, Billy, and everyone else make it

to the Utilidor, where they kill Arvin, but then Eben also has to kill Billy. For me, this pattern quickly becomes tiresome, and while the vampire attacks are nicely gory, like I said before, the frantic, quick manner in which they're shot and edited tends to ruin any enjoyment I could get out of them, which is why I'm not going into as much detail as you might expect from me. 

Even though, as per the title, the story is meant to take place over the span of a month, I don't feel that at all. One reason is the polar night itself, as the constant darkness makes it impossible to tell that time is passing. In fact, if it weren't for the captions that tell you what day it is, you would have no idea how long into the month you are at any given point. And even then, I don't get the sense that the characters are being run ragged by having to constantly hide and move from one shelter to another, as they don't ever really look any worse for wear, save for Eben's increasingly

scruffy facial hair and Jake's chapped lips near the end. They don't look malnourished or sleep-deprived or anything of the sort, and that makes it harder for me to get into their plight. Speaking of which, I'm supposed to buy that Stella and Gail survived several days of exposure while hiding beneath a car out on the street? Sure. And the movie just feels really padded out and drags badly during all these lulls in the action, especially when you get towards the latter

part of the third act and, after everything that happens at the Utilidor, everybody, yet again, has to hunker down and wait, only jumping into action again when the vampires set the place on fire, and Stella and Gail are in danger of being burned alive.

I won't lie, though, the climax is pretty cool. First, the image of the burning town, juxtaposed against the black night sky and the white snow, is an awesome one. Second, after Eben injects himself with Billy's blood, he stumbles out of the Utilidor and, putting up his parka hood, stomps towards the vampires, engaging in a short but nice fight with Marlow. He manages to get some good licks in by punching, grabbing, and slamming him against a vehicle's hood, but even with the added benefit of vampire strength and agility, Marlow still throws Eben around like a 

rag-doll, causing him to start spitting up blood, and dodges some of his attacks. There's one very painful-looking moment where Marlow bends Eben's left hand all the way back and then knocks him to the ground. But, when he rushes at him again to finish him, Eben impales Marlow through the mouth with his arm, blowing out the back of his head. After Marlow drops to the ground, blood pooling out of his mouth, the other vampires, despite Eben challenging them as well, decide to back off and they slip away into the darkness. The clouds begin to part, indicating the coming dawn, and Eben initially considers going after them, but since sunrise is near, it's a good chance they're doomed just like he is.

The music was composed by Brian Reitzell, who's worked a lot with Sofia Coppola, and has also scored movies like Friday Night Lights and TV shows like Hannibal. Originally, I said his work on 30 Days of Night was unimpressive, but now, while it's still not a score I absolutely love, I do appreciate it more. The music is often meant to be atmospheric than anything that would really stand out to you, like the low-key piece for the opening and the very atmospheric one that plays over the ending credits, with everything eventually fading until all you hear is a distant, rhythmic pinging sound, kind of like some sort of lonely signal out where there's, otherwise, only silence. But there are some parts that do stand out, like this very fast, intense drumming you hear when Arvin breaks into the Riis home and takes Ally; this eerie piece that plays when Eben has to kill John, the most notable part of which is this echoing, otherworldly sound you hear every time he chops into John's neck with the axe; and this really badass bit that plays when the vampires set fire to the town, followed by a similarly awesome drum bit for when Eben, with vampire blood now running through his veins, marches down the center of the town for the final battle.

30 Days of Night is an example of a movie that I really wished I liked more but, instead, I find it to be a mixed bag. The visual style is a big highlight, as is the setting, with an impressive mix of production design, cinematography, and visual effects used to create it, and it also benefits from a truly ferocious and monstrous portrayal of vampires, lots of well done gore effects, and a pretty good music score. But, all that said, the characters are bland and forgettable, especially the two leads, whose marital discourse subplot is underdeveloped and amounts to nothing in the long run. It doesn't help that Josh Hartnett's performance leaves a lot to be desired, and him and Melissa George have no chemistry. On top of that, the action scenes tend to be very shaky, choppy, and hard to follow, and the pacing is bad, with the formula of the characters constantly hiding and running from the vampires quickly becoming repetitive and causing the movie to drag after a promising first act. I know this flick has its fans, and that's cool, but for me, this is yet another one that I can't see myself watching again now that this is done