The Critic30 Days Of Night
April 21st 2008 04:16
30 Days Of Night
In the beginning.... a man is walking through desolate snow. As the camera slowly pulls away we see a ship, but not at a harbor. The ship appears stranded in the snow.
Now, the director, David Slade (Hard Candy) takes us to Barrow, Alaska. Barrow is the most geographically northern city in the United States.
Barrow has a climate feature unknown to the other 49 states. For one month per year there is no sunlight. As the film begins, it is the last day of daylight; they are preparing for thirty days of night.
This intense, frightening, well-acted and directed film creates characters and a place and a crisis, and takes you to an appropriate end, within the sphere of the story.
It has been awhile since I've seen a horror film this good. Some reviewers have complained that there is not enough dialigue, but I enjoyed the spare use of words. Reviewers have also complained that there is a lack of human interest, and this I disagree with as well. You pretty much know who everyone is, but, as in life, it can be the little things that tell you, and they are gone in thirty seconds. So it is with the Sheriff (Josh Hartnett).
Josh Hartnett
Melissa George
Absent the usual B-movie horror flick dialogue (“I'll be right back” - never mind that there's a serial killer around...), and action, you generally like these folks. If they fail to survive they do so because they can't bear to leave family members to the vampires.
A few folks have mentioned the change in the population board for Barrow, early in the movie. It's a bit of humor. 30 days of night are about to arrive. The folks who don't want to endure that are leaving. Only about 150 folks are left to endure the dark.
The actors are spot on, starting with Josh Hartnett. His performance quietly leads the whole film. Melissa George is tough and tender, Mark Rendall, Elizabeth McRae, Danny Huston, and the rest of the cast are solid support.
From the moment the film begins you know this is no typical horror flick. The cinematography carries the story along, as does the music, helping the director to terrorize the audience. A couple of times I thought the film might be directed by John Carpenter. (It isn't) I was a bit reminded of the original Assault on Precinct 13, one of the great B movies.
David Slade is the director, known for the films Hard Candy (see review by johndoe
and Do Geese See God. (a blurb from Amazon is here: Amazon)
This isn't Alien or Francis Ford Coppolla's Dracula. In it's B movie perfection it's more like Blade or Underworld. But, the vampires aren't like them at all. These folks are not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt from Interview With The Vampire. Nor are they going to attend a rave in Blade. Nope. These are nasty folks. Really nasty.
Warning: there is a fair amount of gore. Not as much as the stomache churning gratuitous amounts in many lesser films, or maybe a gritty episdoe of CSI. But, it is there.
So, if this genre is one you enjoy, watch with someone you can hang on to.
Additional reviews can be found here:
Horrorphile
rottentomatoes
metacritic
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