30 Days Of Night
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben FosterDirector: David Slade
Year of Release: 2007
The vampire has got to be the most overused and clichéd movie monster. There have been so many vampire movies and TV shows that there is an established common understanding of what they are and what they’re limitations are. Movies don’t need to fill in any details about vampires, the audience knows them all too well. The original 30 Days Of Night graphic novel had an interesting approach. If vampires can’t be in the sunlight, why not let them loose in a place where there is no sunlight for months. Unfortunately movie versions of comic books don’t often work because they can’t tell the story in the way it was originally intended. Movies have to condense the story and make it more Hollywood so the producers who are spending $32 million make their money back.
I was looking forward to this movie and in general I like vampire movies. But this one falls short though. The story gets kind of weak and I don’t buy the ending. Visually it is pretty cool and I felt the director shot the action well, relying on a lot of hand-held cameras. But that’s not enough.
I never read the entire graphic novel so I can’t compare it. Maybe some of the story shortcomings are just being faithful to the source material. But one of the main problems with the movie, as others have pointed out too, is the whole concept of 30 days of night to begin with. As someone wrote on IMDB:
One day in full bright sunshine and the next day in total darkness is a totally inaccurate depiction. Total darkness for many days and then suddenly a full and normal sunrise is not how it works near the poles. As the days gets shorter, sunrise comes later and sunset comes earlier. Eventually you start to get days where the sun barely peaks over the horizon with a few hours of twilight. Even when you reach the middle of this long “dark” period, you’ll still have some hours twilight with the sun just under the horizon. Eventually the sun will peek out over the horizon just a little more on each new day as the sunrises come earlier and the sunsets come later.
And even common sense tells you that the Sun doesn’t just “turn off” like that. That’s easier to forgive in a graphic novel than in a movie.
These vampires speak some weird vampire language but they are dressed like they just got out of a Marilyn Manson concert. Why the hip, black trenchcoats and suits? If they are speaking a weird language and are centuries old, why not have them wear something a little more reflective of their history. And not look like Ashley Simpson & Pete Wentz on a bad day.
And what? They can’t EVER clean their faces off? They can wear nice black suit jackets but they gotta walk around for a whole month with huge blood stains all over their face like they just got done with a pie-eating contest? Yea I get they are “feeding” and animal-like. But you don’t see lions covered in blood all the time. And even if they just didn’t care and left it, would it still be all over their face 30 days later? It’s like they put it on every day like makeup. I must have missed that Revlon commercial.
I don’t get either how they can take getting shot and not be affected by it, but the one girl vampire gets burned by a plant lamp and she needs to be put out of her misery. Most vampire flicks have the vamps snapping back pretty quick. What’s her problem?
Another thing that bugged me with the movie was the time passing by. Every so often a message would come up on the screen saying something like “Day 18.” But here’s the thing, nothing changed between the days! The characters all looked exactly the same and acted exactly the same. It felt like 5 minutes went by, not 2 weeks or whatever. There was absolutely no sense that any time had gone by at all. The movie played out like it was all one day. I know that the premise of 30 days of night makes it look like all one day, but that’s where the story writers should have come in to clue the audience in to the fact that weeks were passing by. The one exception was Josh Hartnett’s facial hair, which honestly I didn’t even notice until I watched the Special Features on the DVD. I also just don’t buy that the vamps didn’t find them the whole 30 days wherever they were hiding. They can smell blood right? Should take them about a minute to figure out where the last people were hiding.
Here is what I didn’t like about the ending, Josh Hartnett’s character makes it all 30 days without getting killed only to turn himself into a vampire and die. Huh? Then he fights the main bad guy and kills him in like 5 minutes, almost on accident, by punching him through the head? It was pretty anti-climactic. And then of course all the underling vampires split because apparently they can only go on a bloody rampage if they have their leader there. They just spent 30 days killing everything in sight and now they wimp out? Whatever. Something more realistic would be everyone getting killed or just one guy left standing. But that’s not Hollywood.
The acting was decent. Danny Huston as the lead vampire was great. I’m not a fan of Josh Hartnett but he was fine. Overall it was an okay movie. Just some huge plot holes and not a very satisfying resolution.
| Title | Content |
|---|---|
| Movie: | 30 Days of Night |
| Director: | David Slade |
| Release Date: | 19 October 2007 (USA) / Other Countries |
| Genre: | Horror / Thriller |
| Plot Outline: | After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires. |
| User Rating: | 22,707 votes, average 6.8 out of 10 |
| Runtime: | 113 |
| Awards: | 1 nomination |
| Cast: | Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Ben Foster, Manu Bennett … |
| Others: |  Additional Details
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| Photos: | 
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