30 Days of Night is directed by David Slade, and stars Josh Hartnett, Mellisa George, Ben Foster, Mark Rendall and Manu Bennett.
In this small town, Barrow, Alaska, every year during winter the town experiences a 30 day long night. The sun does not rise for 30 days, this is quite useful to the creatures of the night, especially vampires. Everything seems normal for Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) as he prepared for the dark month to come. A stranger (Ben Foster) shows up in town and commits a terrible act of vandalism, by killing all the sled dogs available to the town. Therefore leaving the entire town’s population stranded for the month in a dark town with hungry vampires who have suddenly appeared.
Well firstly I wasn’t hoping for much, because I’m not much of a horror fan and worse not a fan of Mr. Hartnett’s acting skills that I’ve seen over the years passed. However this movie was pretty good. I loved the story, I haven’t read this particular Graphic Novel (Written by Steve Niles and Illustrated by Ben Templesmith), however I’m tempted to go out and find it after seeing this film. The story was so good. It isn’t your stereotypical horror/vampire/survival film. Instead of it being about outsmarting the vampires it became about outlasting them.
The direction seemed pretty good. It made sure to show that these ghoulies were more than violent they were intelligent as well. He tried to show each side of this battle and how they thought about each move. Kept the story moving at a good pace and kept the fear of being discovered and murdered deeply embedded in the back of your mind, as well as a small sense of cabin fever every second while watching this film.
Josh did very well in this film, and Ben Foster was good while he was there, I liked him mainly because he acted/sounded and felt exactly like he did in “3:10 to Yuma” which I loved him in. However, I want to give a huge standing ovation to the Danny Huston who played Marlow in the film (aka the head vampire). I think that his acting was amazing, making you see all sorts of sides of this violent nightmare.
One part of this film which should be given a huge thumbs up is the effects in this film. From showing me Josh Hartnett chopping someone’s head off with his axe to seeing the action sequences were amazing. I loved the effects at the end of the film (won’t saw what happens don’t want to spoil it).
So ye, as you can tell a good rating is on its way. If you like horror/vampires/good stories then check this movie out, as long as you aren’t hemophobic.
IMDB says 7.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes says 52%
I say 6.8/10
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