30 Days of Night

Directed by: David Slade
Written by: Steve Niles, Brian Nelson, Stuart Beattie
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Rendall, Megan Franich

Score: 5.5/10

Regardless of whether or not you think the Vampire genre was in need of an overhaul, the premise for 30 Days of Night, based on the graphic novel of the same name, is really cool. A group of Vampires move in on a small town in Alaska where night lasts for 30 days. Taking a real scenario and adapting it to the one movie monster that we all know hates the sun is, in a word, genius. However genius is a word that can’t be used when describing the movie version of Steve Niles’ and Ben Templesmith’s comic. With such a cool story it’s a real shame that 30 Days of Night never amounts to anything other than mediocre.

Set in Barrow, Alaska, the northern most town in the United States, where winter brings a month of darkness. Most of town opts to leave during this time, and the movie opens with everyone packing up and doing just that. The town sheriff, Eben (Josh Hartnett) is making his last rounds of the town before settling in for what he thinks will be a slow month. As night closes in a number of strange things begin to happen. Phones and power begin to shut off and the town’s only sled dogs are killed. All these things are being done by a mysterious stranger (Ben Foster), sent in by the Vampires, that will soon take over the town, to make sure the people are trapped. It doesn’t take long for the remaining people in the town to realize something terrible is happening, and once the vampires make there way in terrible things do happen.

The beginning of the movie is really well done, and sadly the most entertaining. When we first meet the group of vampires, that are just itching to rip every human apart, we’re greeted with a group of monsters that are a lot more stylized than the typical vampire - which is a good thing. Their faces are distorted and discolored and just looking at them strike fears in you. They even talk in their own vampire language which really gives you a sense of the vampire world, but the vampires aren’t the problem with 30 Days of Night, which is good for a movie about vampires. It’s the humans that ruin this movie.

None of the humans in this movie are likable, you can’t root for these characters which is something you want to do when watching a movie about humans trying to survive against blood-thirsty vampires. For such a cool concept I was taken back once all these clichéd characters are introduced. You’ve got the couple made up of Eben and Stella (Melissa George), the crazy guy who goes against the group, the older couple, and the town outcast who ends up doing something very heroic. All of the characters are also pretty one dimensional, with nothing to sink your teeth into (no pun intended). The only character with any substance is The Stranger, played by Ben Foster. Foster steals this movie, with another great performance, the only problem is he’s only really in about 20 minutes.

Another big problem I had with the movie is that you never get any sense of time passing. This band of people must stay alive until daylight comes, so the movie spans 30 days. But it never feels like more than a day has passed in the entire movie, with the people jumping from place to place trying to survive and think of a plan on how to deal with the creatures.

Overall, 30 Days of Night had a lot of promise, but a very cool idea is stripped down and reduced to an average Vampire movie, filled with the usual cast of clichéd characters and some mildly entertaining action.