30 Days of Night
Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT has one of those great premises that you wish you had thought up. There's a town in Northern Alaska where the sun doesn't shine for thirty days which is perfect for vampires or those freaky kids that can't go out in the sun. Director David Slade gets things moving quickly on the last day of sun. What at first seems like random vandalism is quickly revealed to be much more, causing Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) a shit load of ever worsening problems. A stranger playing the standard "Renfieldian" human accomplice to the vampires arrives in town and does the whole "Death is coming, blah, blah, blah" spiel. Why do these guys always wanna eat bugs or raw meat anyway? The sheriff's estranged wife Stella ( Melissa George) misses the last plane out and is stuck in town to provide a little dramatic back story to make you care about the characters. I never really got why she couldn't drive out of town but apparently no one can due to weather, I'm guessing. Plus it wouldn't really serve the story. The vampires hit pretty hard and pretty quick, taking a few people in a blur. You don't really get a good look at them at first. There's a nice attack when one basically throws himself into a house, through a window. The attacks are effective because initially it's not unlike the blur of a big cat attack. They come out of nowhere and snatch people, dragging them under houses, kicking and screaming. Very feral. One thing that bugged me is the way there heads shake all crazy like when they're tearing out throats. It just seemed a bit much and a not very effective predatory method of blood drinking. It doesn't take any time before the attack goes full steam, with people getting taken in the streets and everywhere else. A group of survivors eventually takes to hiding in attics as the vampires roam the streets. It's not unlike scenes from the accounts of Jews hiding from the Nazis. The vampires themselves become less scary the more screen time they get. They have big mouths full of needle teeth and some of them do a little too much of the "evil guy" posing with the hissing and screeching. And then there's the language they speak which is conveniently subtitled for us. It just didn't seem necessary at all and was a bit too "Vampirey" for me. Once they started the whole "these pathetic humans, we are the superior being" crap I got a little restless. As I see it , we are their t-bones and hamburgers,just as cows are to some people. People like me. I don't drive to the cattle ranch and put down the cow for being a "pathetic plague" while I hiss at it. Just eat the fucking people and shut up. I want my vampires just to be big, mean predatory vermin. The movie doesn't have any of the gothic vampire killing trappings; no holy water, garlic or crosses. Cutting their heads off seems to work and they seem to shrug off the gun fire. They also do a lot of that leaping ,scaling walls stuff you've seen before. So the onslaught goes on as the month clicks by but you never really feel that the survivors have been trapped in an attic for weeks as maybe you should. It felt like about three and a half days of night. And then before you know it, it's the last day of no sun and time for the big climax. Although it's not really stated, I assume the vampires knew there were survivors and paced their feeding so they would have a snack at the end. The most obvious film comparison I suppose would have to be John Carpenter's THE THING but this flick wasn't nearly as claustrophobic or paranoid. But it did have snow and sled dogs. The very end of the movie seemed a bit forced and I'm sure annoyed a lot of people. It's as if it was crammed in there just to give a showdown between Hartnett and the main vampire (Danny Huston) but it wasn't really set up enough to seem like the logical conclusion. Are there some sort of "vampire challenge face off" rules that require the other vampires to not interfere in alpha vampire combat? On the plus side at least it wasn't a metaphor for homosexuality or high school like other vampires offerings in the post Anne Rice world.