30 Days of Night [2007]
Director: David Slade
Actor: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Megan Franich, Andrew Stehlin
.: Synopsis
Barrow is the northern most situated city in the United States, a plane ride away from Anchorage, Alaska, and surrounded by snow and ice. The only reason it exists is that there’s oil rigs out on the ocean, and there’s an oil-pipe that runs near the town. During most months the town is inhabited by about 500 or so people, but during the 30 days of night, the month in which they experience no sunlight whatsoever, due to their proximity to the north pole, the town only keeps a skeleton crew of about 150 people. During the last day, when everyone is busy packing up and trying to catch the last plane out of town, a stranger gets off a large vessel and walks for miles and miles until reaching the town. He almost immediately stands out as he causes trouble in the local diner, demanding a raw, uncooked hamburger instead of a warm one. Things get out of hand, and the young sheriff, Eben Oleson (Hartnett) decides to take him in. He does so because some very strange things have been happening that day; not only have almost all the cellular phones been stolen and burnt outside of town, also all the sled-dogs have been horribly mutilated. That and the unusual amount of various other unsolved crimes that day makes Eben very suspicious and he hauls the man to jail. There he talks of darkness and impending doom, and that he did all “they” asked of him and they’ll reward him for it. Considering it the ravings of a lunatic, Eben continues to investigate the various incidents of vandalism, theft and dog mutilations around town.
Once everyone who’s leaving has caught the last plane, and the last rays of sunlight for a period of 30 days has left the sky, more strangers appear in town, deformed and feral, dressed in clothing not suited for the intense cold weather. They immediately start to attack every citizen of Barrow, viciously biting them and feeding on their blood. The townsfolk try to mount a defense, but the strangers seem unaffected by bullets and immensely strong and resilient. The town is turned into a bloodbath, and only a handful of townsfolk survive, banding together and hiding in secret places, trying to survive as they are being hunted by these ferocious maniacs, hoping to make it through the 30 days of night. Everyone looks to Eben for leadership and guidance, and he’s forced to make some tough decisions and resort to brutalities of his own in order to keep the group alive.
.: Opinion
This is a fantastic film. I had the same feeling about this film once it was over like I did with 28 Days Later; it’s such a great, refreshing take on an old genre, and I was really left with the feeling of “this is what a vampire movie should be like!” The name “vampire” is dropped only twice in the movie. Someone suggest that they are vampires, and another dismisses it, saying that they don’t exist. They’re not really vampires, or at least not the traditional cool and enigmatic ones that you’re used to from popular literature and film, but they are feral and crazy. They talk in a language that’s primal and old, and while they accept all the trappings and opportunities of modern civilisation, they hunt like a pack of wolves.
There’s a certain point in the movie where the leader of the pack addresses all the others about the danger of letting anyone survive. He says, in his strange language, that they have, for thousands of years, moved heaven and earth in order for the humans to believe that they were the stuff of nightmares. Leaving anyone alive threatens that. It gives a glimpse of how old these creatures must be without delving into it like other films like Underworld or Blade do.
What I also found interesting is that the leader of the pack looks relatively human. Sure he has the mouth filled with oversized, needle-shaped teeth, and he has the long calcified claws, but his features are still much like that of a human. The others, however, look more and more feral. As if the younger the vampire, the more deformed he is. Either that, or some vampires retain more of their humanity than others do.
In the end, they are incredibly brutal, and more like Brian Lumley’s Wamphyri than the popular Buffy-type vampires, and as a result the movie is exceptionally gory. There are some very graphic decapitations and killings in this film, which might turn some people off. It makes the film not really scary, but very, very creepy.
Random thoughts; The ending I found a little weak, but not enough for it to let it diminish my opinion of the movie. The atmosphere was really well done and the music, which was excellent, helped it quite a bit. The blizzard scene wasn’t so fantastic because of the CGI, but I guess it could’ve been a lot worse. Acting-wise the movie isn’t very impressive, character development neither, but what I did like (and others will likely disagree with me) is that the two main protagonists, Eben and Stella (George) have a history and act according to that history but they don’t delve into it in an inappropriate way. What I also liked is that even though these vampires are feral, they’re not stupid and they keep some of the townsfolk alive to use as bait to lure out the others.
All in all; fantastic!