Lock your doors, they’re coming for dinner.
It is a rare thing nowadays to find a compelling vampire film in the aftermath of Twilight, so I went back to the year before it was released. David Slade’s 30 Days of Night is an adaptation of Steve Niles’ comic book series of the same name. When I purchased the DVD I took a risk, it was a three for two pile and I needed the third to make my purchase. Going in with absolutely no expectations, I was quite impressed.
Set in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in North America, the film retells Niles’ terrifying tale of a town under siege. The town is annually plunged into darkness for a 30 day period, and this year a caste of marauding vampires claim Barrow as their hunting ground. Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) leads the survivors in a daring and courageous stand against an enemy they do not understand, and cannot kill.
Performance wise I found the chemistry between the Sheriff and his wife (Melissa George) quite compelling. It was a very believable relationship on the rocks kick-started by imminent death type of performance, cliché perhaps, but nonetheless entertaining.
Stella (George) and Eben (Hartnett) evade the vampires.
Danny Huston headed the vampire caste as Marlow. Marlow is a very malicious character, and Huston performed with the right balance of malevolence and cold hard mystique. The vampires were a very mysterious bunch, and while out of interest I would have liked to know their age, I feel this served them well.
Marlow (Huston) terrorizes a survivor.
I won’t spoil the surprises for you, but there are some very interesting takes on the vampire genre. A certain sunlight factor remains a decider, whilst there are other gothic tropes that have been neglected making for an interesting mix of conditions by which the vampires operate.
There is nothing dire to pick on here. At times the deaths can be a touch over done. The vampires are very brutal and animalistic when they feed, but this does not detract from an enjoyable viewing. It could have been nice to see some more defined relationships amongst the vampires but the plot does not suffer greatly without them. If you have not already seen 30 Days of Night I highly recommend you pull it off the shelf.
7.5/10 stars
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Check out the trailer below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh746f28p3I]
-JoelE
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1 thought on “Horror off the Shelf: 30 Days of Night (2007)”
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I'm a David Slade fan, who directed 30 Days of Night, so I was pleased to see your recent entry at IMDB praising this film. I consider it to be among the finest vampire films ever made, and I'd put the following in that category since they have some unique quality to them which broadened the genre:1. The Addiction: a very dark nihilistic vampire film that is entirely unapologetic.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112288/2. Shadow of the Vampire which is really about the pursuit of immortality by all us all and a retrospective of the Nosferatu film save that Max Shreck is a genuine vampire.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0189998/3. Nosferatu: the classic film and arguably the best depiction of a vampire until Kinskihttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/4. Nosferatu the Vampyre: a German film which is the antithesis of the Twilight glam-vampires and instead a pathetic haunted creature.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079641/5. We are the Night (Wir sind die Nacht): a look at the vampire as complete materialists who cannot assuage their hunger for some substitute to replace their humanity.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692504/The last is sadly misunderstood by the vast number of viewers but since you understood 30 Days of Night so well artistically, you'd probably enjoy that film as well.Slade is the executive producer of the Hannibal tv series in America and has directed six of the episodes as well.