[30 Days Of Night]
Plot:This is the story of an isolated Alaskan town that is plunged into darkness for a month each year when the sun sinks below the horizon. As the last rays of light fade, the town is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires bent on an uninterrupted orgy of destruction. Only the small town's husband-and-wife Sheriff team stand between the survivors and certain destruction.

Cast:Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster.

My Thoughts:Great vampire movie...key word being "vampire movie".

Review:"30 Days Of Night" was a film that I wasn't really stoked or not excited for. I was somewhere in between on it, mostly considering that vampire movies have been well, pathetic over the past 5 years or so. David Slade's film does an excellent job of bringing the classic vampire movie back to where it should be, and should've stayed all along. Presenting vampires as the cold-blooded, murderous creatures that they are, instead of GAP models with a desperate "cool factor". The pic follows the happenings in a small Alaskan town, where all is quiet and normal in the cold and freezing tundra that these people call home.

That is until a pen full of sled dogs turn up brutally murdered, and a weird stranger (Ben Foster) shows up in town. This chain of events at first scares the townspeople a bit, as well as disturbs them. But the real terror is yet to come, as a pack of vicious, bloodthirsty vampires, led by the deadly Marlow (Danny Huston) show up in town and begin shredding the population like a cheap suit. Unlucky for the people of this town, this attack occurs just around the time where for one month, the sun sinks out of existence for 30 whole days. "30 Days Of Night" does an excellent job of setting the tone for the horror that is yet to come. The film sets up things nicely in the pic's first 20 minutes, slowly building up to the vampire action, which once it begins doesn't end until the films climax, and basically becomes a non-stop bloodbath.

Josh Hartnett and Melissa George star as Eben and Stella Oleson, a close to divorcing couple who have a son, and while neither wants to put their pride aside, and nix the impending divorce, are forced together in order to protect their son and other famly members when the vamps show up in town and begin bleeding the populous. The vampires really are the stars of this film, which while it's not supposed to be a rareity in the horror genre, it has sadly become so. But "30 Days Of Night" makes it it's sole purpose to put the vampires on center stage in this movie, giving them many scenes, memorable ones, where they wreak havoc upon the town.

Danny Huston as Marlow is certainly the most interesting of the vampire gang. While he is a savage monster like the others, he is also the only vampire who can talk and communicates with the other vampires in a strange language (with possible ancient european origins), while taunting his human victims in english...right before he kills them. Huston plays this character very well, giving him an evil persona that can be slightly admired from a villain standpoint, yet mostly feared at the same time. A slight rivalry also develops between Huston's character Marlow and Hartnett's character Eben as Eben emerges as the "one" who has to take the responsibility upon his shoulders of saving the town from these demonic villains.

Melissa George's character doesn't make much of an impact early on but Niles who wrote the pic makes sure to build up her characters vital part in the movie slowly, making her more and more important to the inner-workings of things as the movie moves along. But Hartnett's character is the most interesting and likeable good guy in the movie, from a character development standpoint. But George provides some very necessary eye candy for a film filled with alot of ugly faces and bloodshed all over the place. Other than badass villains, and equally cool heroes and heroines, "30 Days Of Night" also doesn't forget to give the vampire movie one of it's second most important elements, which is blood.

The film is loaded with it, and the best part is it doesn't come across as gratuitous, but very well ingrained into the films action scenes. The pic also boasts some very graphic death scenes, everything from decaps, to limb losses, to smashed heads are present in "30 Days Of Night". All of this set to the dark, snowy New Zealand backdrops which give the movie a perfect dark, eerie, and spooky tone for the action and mayhem to take place in. If there's one weakness to the film though, it's the human characters beyond Hartnett and George, who are pretty much fodder and very uninteresting to boot.

While they do get some very heroic moments on screen, they lack screen presence and really aren't developed well enough to get the viewer to care about their fates. But the film does use these characters very well despite all of that, putting them in some very intense moments, all the way up until the very end which boasts one of the films most effective scenes. "30 Days Of Night" is an excellent vampire movie, which hopefully will set a new bar for vampire films and more importantly, put the genre back on track.

Positives:Great set pieces, good performances by Hartnett, George, and Huston. Good kills, alot of blood, and some very graphic death scenes. A very classic ending as well.

Negatives:The supporting cast wasn't very well developed.

Overall:Great vampire picture.





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