Horror Film Reviews: 30 Days Of Night

I can't ever remember when a film would make me seem just a little bit scared or make me just feel a little bit worried about watching, I read the original graphic novel with which this film is based on and that was a great and original horror concept based on the idea that in Alaska there are 30 days of night that occur in winter and that's when the Vampires arrive to feast on the alaskan inhabitants.

The idea behind it is valid and one which drives the story forward to see who survives and who doesn't, the start of the movie builds a supense and naturally introduces you to the main characters, the day starts off as the last day of sunlight which is reflected in the opening sequence which shows a ship from which an outsider arrives (Ben Foster) and you just know from the look on the crazy fools face that he is up to no good.

Mobile phones are burnt and cute husky dogs have their throats slashed as all contact with the outside world is lost seemingly oblivious to almost everyone in the town of Barrow Alaska, I think the first few scenes build a tension to what's coming quite effectively and when the vampires do arrive there is an almost evil menace to the whole thing, vampires in other films with the classic fangs and all them Nosferatu cliches are blown away with a breath of fresh air here as they have shark like teeth and just black looking almost demon like eyes and as these are or possibly centuries old vampires they have huge talon like finger nails to slash the unlucky sods that live and then die in the film.

Marlow the head vampire (Played by Danny Huston) as it were is quite brutal and vicious and that made it all the more frightening, the vampires in this film don't talk english instead they use some form of tribal language, even though it sounded latin to me I don't think it was, a quite violent film with blood and guts on show and entrails splattered all around the white snow effectively portrays the evil.

After a good amount of the towns population gets slaughtered there are the usual amount of survivors just like any other film and then we cheer a bit later on when a few of the vampires get their heads blown off or ripped to bits by an Industrial chainsaw. The way that the film carries on after certain events in the film is quite notable, everything happens to move the story on quite nicely, for instance a little vampire girl gets her head chopped off with an axe and this brings on some characterization of some of the characters so we get to see their reactions and the story progress with real emotion here.

The film also counts down by staggering the count like it becomes blurred after a while as if it was a real event you would not count down each day instead you would stagger the days so that a tension is built up by you realising how many days they have left until the sun rises and the survivors become less and less.

The ending was great too as it culiminates in the whole subtle love story theme that plays through from the beginning with the sherrif (Josh Hartnett) and Stella (Melissa George) as they had no time to talk before, except when all this stuff is happening.

All in all this was an excellent film adaptation of a much loved and classic graphic novel story and worth watching for the horror and seeing vampires as scary again and not sexy vampire babes in bikinis(Although that sounds quite nice!)

British Director David Slade did a good job working from Steve Niles screenplay and the film was shot in parts of New Zealand and not in Alaska, which makes it all the more brilliant...Watch the making of features as it gives you more insight into the films production.