30 Days of Night – Surprisingly Good!

OK, I realize the movie came out two years ago and I’m way behind the times in mentioning it but I finally got around to watching 30 Days of Night this week and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

The concept is clever enough – a band of bloodthirsty vampires invade the real life town of Barrow, Alaska at the peak of winter to enjoy a 30 day blood feast with no threat of interruption from the rising sun. Even with a good idea though, there’s always a chance that the filmmakers will do something to make it bad. Pet Sematary comes to mind. Thankfully, that didn’t happen this time.

The movie is based on a comic book series written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. My understanding is that the film adaptation, directed by former music video maker David Slade, is fairly true to the comic books which usually guarantees a decent adaptation.

My favorite thing about a good vampire movie is the steps taken to add something new to vampire mythos. 30 Days of Night has a few great new takes on vampires which I can tell you about without spoiling the movie.

• The vampires speak their own language. Some sort of guttural arcane tongue replete with onscreen subtitles. If you look at the comments on IMDB’s entry for the film, you’ll see that this turned off some viewers. I thought it added to the story.

• The vampires aren’t stopped by wooden stakes or religious symbols. There’s only one way to stop these vampires and I’m not going to mention it in case any readers haven’t seen it yet. There’s also a fascinating exchange between the lead vampire and a victim on the subject of God. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the moment to which I’m referring.

• The vampires have no interest in converting humans to their kind. They are actually more concerned with destroying all the humans in the town so as not to alert mankind to their existence.

The story has a few classical elements of vampire lore, including the creatures’ aversion to sunlight and even a human “Renfield” type character who serves the vampires and is referred to as “the Stranger.”

All in all, I thought the script was well written and the cast was great, particularly Josh Hartnett as the town sheriff, one of the main characters.

The filmmaking style is jerky and fast paced at times which is no surprise, given David Slade’s background in music videos. A third of the way into the movie there’s a brilliant overhead shot of the town that illustrates the extent of the bloody carnage below.

Make no mistake, as vampire films go, this one is bloody and gory but it’s got a great story. If you’re a fan of the genre, I highly recommend it. Just don’t be surprised if you suddenly want to cancel that Alaskan cruise you’ve been planning.