30 Days of Night (2007)

Written by Steve Niles and Brian Nelson and Stuart Beattie
Directed by David Slade

I read Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's 30 Days of Night graphic novel years ago, just the first collection of issues, and I remember being satisfied with the story, but the thing I liked most about it, and I'm sure what drew Ghost House to the property was it's unusual and unique setting for a vampire film. This is the thing that drew me to read the graphic novel in the first place, plus I heard a lot of priase for it in certain circles, so I was inclined to check it out. What I have learned over the years though, is that the comic community is such a small place, that stuff that stands out, even slightly often gets pushed to the forefront to become a household name, just because there are so few household names. Not that I'm saying 30 Days of Night wasn't enjoyable, but I had heard about it as the "greatest horror comic" currently in print.

So upon release of the movie, the heavily mixed reaction I read slightly confused me. Fairweather horror fans, that more bordered on liking good movies typically found it stilted and a bit wandering, whereas most horror fans had nothing but praise. Just as alarmingly, a good chunk of horror fans also just plain hated it. So I was guarded against seeing it at first, but upon sitting down to finally watch it, I must say I really don't understand all the fuss and divisiveness.

In 30 Days of Night, a team of vampires, preceeded by a curious stranger (Ben Foster) descend upon Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in America, while the town is preparing to go into 30 days of complete blackness. The Sheriff, Eben (Josh Hartnett) and his separated wife Stella (Melissa George) have both gone their seperate ways, but due to a series of accidents and mishaps, Stella gets stuck out in the snow, and has to call on Eben to come help her out. From the start, it's made apparent that Evan never wanted to split up, that it was Stella's idea, but once she is stuck in Barrow, it's obvious they'll have to confront each other at some point and talk about their problems.

However, before any of this can happen, they are forced to arrest The Stranger, a man who has wandered into town, and requests liquor when it's illegal, and raw hamburger meat. So Sheriff Olsen locks him up and hears out his ominous warnings that "they" are coming and that "they are death". Of course, anyone that's seen a horror movie sees these types of things as cliche, but the thing that seperates this movie is Ben Foster, who is absolutely brilliant, even when he's only on screen for less than 10 minutes.

Still, most of this movie is nothing new. It's equal parts Near Dark and Night of the Living Dead. The story and characters aren't new and different, the gore is well done, but still expected to a certain extent. What seperates this and puts it above being a typical rip off is the unique nature of the setting, and how it is used to progress the story. I agree with some reviewers who said the movie has too many "Ok, it's safe, let's run from point A to point B" moments, and small things like this make the movie drag. After reading the graphic novel, and watching the first hour, I was basically to the point where I had seen every major incident that was written in the graphic novel, and there was still an hour left in the film.

I find it curious that I had this same experience with David Slade's last film, the great Hard Candy, I felt it should've been a 45 minute film, and it would've been perfect. So I suppose some of the blame lies in the script, which was reworked a few times, and some may be the fault of the director, who had pacing problems in the last film I watched from him. The graphic novel works in this drawing out of the storyline, because the writing and storylines are expected to be slower, and there are more drawings for less writing. Not to mention the form is more suited for longer, more character driven pieces, and there is more time to develop the relationships involved. However, I'm not saying it was better in the graphic novel, I am merely saying it was more suited for the medium than it was in the film.

Despite these few setbacks, and the fact that the use of the timeline was poorly done, the movie doesn't suffer as badly as it could have. Now, on the time aspect, I felt this was indeed really poorly done, the audience is shown 3 dates, and we're expected to understand what other days in between are different. As far as I can tell, the audience is only exposed to 3 seperate days in the storyline, because you really have no clue what the characters do in the meantime. How does Billy eat for 27 days? How does the entire crew eat before they raid the convenience store? What do they drink? None of this is explained, and although they are small lapses in movie logic, many of these small things add up to take a bit away from the movie.

The style of the film is magnificent, it's very well shot, I love the overhead shot of the entire city in chaos (even if it was mostly CGI) so many of the shots like that are well composed and conceived. The vampires themselves are magnificently well played, Marlow (Danny Huston) seperates himself as a leader without using any English, but from the beginning, you are privy to the fact that he is their leader. There are two other bald vampires that also play very well, without using nearly as many words as Marlow (In fact, we only know his name is that because of the graphic novels and reading the credits).

As I said before, the setting is the real star of this film, and the set of the entire town is really well made, I'll be interested to see to what extent they went to in order to achieve what they did. I know on Gangs of New York they built and entire replica of the Five Points of New York, and although this set is smaller and less lavish, they make it look really good, and something had to burn down in the finale of the movie. The recurring quality of this movie is that it is well made, I even liked Melissa George, she played the tough woman without being over the top or "hey look I'm being tough" every five minutes. Although I'm no big Josh Hartnett fan, I really found his performance interesting, if not great. He's not terrible, and he steps up to play the cliche horror tough guy that will put axes into faces. Still, the most stand out aspect of the movie is the creative, if not superbly well done, gore.
 
8.0/10