ann hale sinks her teeth into a new film…
Today’s film is the one and only vampire movie on the calendar for this month; the reason being that most vampire films are mostly about story and less about the animalistic nature of the vampire. When thought about, most people go to Dracula or Twilight immediately but both are more love story than vampire. The truth is that vampires are blood thirsty animals. There doesn’t need to be a story, there just needs to be death. Therefore, today I show my respect to 30 Days of Night, a true blood bath of a film.
Barrow, Alaska has 30 straight days of darkness. The town empties out with the exception of a handful of people including the sheriff, Eben Olsen (Josh Hartnett), his partner, grandmother, brother and estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George), who has been trapped in Barrow due to an accident that kept her from making her plane.
A stranger has appeared in town with the prediction of evil coming. Soon the power is cut and, upon investigation, Eben finds the man running the communications tower has been viciously murdered. When he returns to town, he finds that many of the townsfolk have been slaughtered by a coven of vampires. He and the remaining survivors hide up in an attic, a general store, the jail and finally the utilidor to pass the 30 days without the vampires finding them. The sun is starting to rise and the vampires plan to burn down the town to prevent any survivors from speaking. Eben now has to find a plan to destroy the vamps before they all burn to death.
Normally, I’m not a fan of Josh Hartnett. If you need a reason, I have to words for you: Pearl Harbor. That movie was so bad it overpowered the awesomeness of Lucky Number Slevin. He did manage to redeem himself a bit with this film.
I really enjoyed Ben Foster as the stranger. He did a great job of being mysterious and disgusting and the vampires were top notch. They didn’t sparkle; they didn’t have wrinkled up faces or anything ridiculous. They had black eyes and all of their teeth were sharp. That’s it, yet they manage to be pretty damn creepy. I love that they made them vicious and not just “drink and go”. There is one bird’s eye view shot where you can see the vampires feeding on the people in town and there is just blood all over the snow. The blood is so deep red in contrast to the white of the snow. It really is an amazing shot.
Where I do enjoy vampire films, I find most of them to be the same. 30 Days of Night is original and brutally bloody. I’ll tell you this, you won’t find me moving to Alaska.
