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As a huge fan of the IDW series of comics, and their signature artist Ben Templesmith, I was looking extremely forward to the film adaption of 30 Days of Night. Sadly, the film is stripped of much of the comics surreality and disturbing nature, and is replaced by a stereotypical monster flick.
30 Days of Night is set in the town of Barrow, the northern most part of the United States. Every so often, the sun falls on Barrow and does not rise for an entire month. The small population that remains during this period of night, begins to notice a strange series of events cutting themselves off from the rest of the world. Someone has destroyed all their phones. All planes are gone, and driving out into the snow is too dangerous, and someone has killed all sled dogs. As night finally and fully descends upon the small town, a group of ravenous vampires kill almost the entire population in one night. The remaining survivors, a pair of cops and their relatives, hide and avoid traps set up by the vampires to lure them out of hiding.
30 Days of Night has a few positives, but the cons outweigh them. About the only positives come from the vampires. Their bone chilling appearance and the howls they make are truly eerie. Their dialogue is meaningful and interesting as well, however, you would expect them to be a little more clever. If they could trap all of these people, you wouldn't expect them to waste all of their food source in one night alone. The survivors themselves are nothing special. Typical horror movie characters, eventually they blend into the background. Practically the only character I felt for was a man who saw his wife murdered in front of him as he tried to hide in the crawlspace under his house. He slowly went crazy, and had no idea that he had become a vampire himself. The ending of 30 Days of Night was extremely anti-climactic as well. It had a good build up, as the vampires tried to erase their existence and burn the town, making the deaths appear an accident. [Spoilers ahead, highlight to read] As the town is burning, the main character has to [literally] shred his brother in a machine, as well as one of his partners. He decides he will finally take down the head of the vampires by becoming one himself, and he injects himself with the blood of one of the undead. The resulting fight is over too quickly, and the loose ends are quite annoying. For one, the vampires surrounding him just suddenly seemed to vanish in less than a second, and the sun also appeared to rise in less than a second, yet it took another 5 minutes to have the failed attempt at an emotional goodbye to the main character as his lover holds him as he turns into ash and blows into the wind.
If you like gore, 30 days of night might entertain you for about a half hour, but it's not worth seeing in the theaters. If you are a fan of the comics, or credible horror... don't even bother. 3/10
30 Days of Night is set in the town of Barrow, the northern most part of the United States. Every so often, the sun falls on Barrow and does not rise for an entire month. The small population that remains during this period of night, begins to notice a strange series of events cutting themselves off from the rest of the world. Someone has destroyed all their phones. All planes are gone, and driving out into the snow is too dangerous, and someone has killed all sled dogs. As night finally and fully descends upon the small town, a group of ravenous vampires kill almost the entire population in one night. The remaining survivors, a pair of cops and their relatives, hide and avoid traps set up by the vampires to lure them out of hiding.
30 Days of Night has a few positives, but the cons outweigh them. About the only positives come from the vampires. Their bone chilling appearance and the howls they make are truly eerie. Their dialogue is meaningful and interesting as well, however, you would expect them to be a little more clever. If they could trap all of these people, you wouldn't expect them to waste all of their food source in one night alone. The survivors themselves are nothing special. Typical horror movie characters, eventually they blend into the background. Practically the only character I felt for was a man who saw his wife murdered in front of him as he tried to hide in the crawlspace under his house. He slowly went crazy, and had no idea that he had become a vampire himself. The ending of 30 Days of Night was extremely anti-climactic as well. It had a good build up, as the vampires tried to erase their existence and burn the town, making the deaths appear an accident. [Spoilers ahead, highlight to read] As the town is burning, the main character has to [literally] shred his brother in a machine, as well as one of his partners. He decides he will finally take down the head of the vampires by becoming one himself, and he injects himself with the blood of one of the undead. The resulting fight is over too quickly, and the loose ends are quite annoying. For one, the vampires surrounding him just suddenly seemed to vanish in less than a second, and the sun also appeared to rise in less than a second, yet it took another 5 minutes to have the failed attempt at an emotional goodbye to the main character as his lover holds him as he turns into ash and blows into the wind.
If you like gore, 30 days of night might entertain you for about a half hour, but it's not worth seeing in the theaters. If you are a fan of the comics, or credible horror... don't even bother. 3/10
