Rating: ***** I give this DVD a 5 out of a possible 5

This DVD brings back the savagery and utter depraved evilness of vampires, along with their speed, intelligence and their total contempt for humankind.

This is long overdue, considering the legion of suave, human-loving vampires being pushed down horror fans throats over the years.

David Slade, the director of this fresh, yet primal movie based on a graphic comic, has brought to life the utter chaos and mayhem a band of vampires bring to the small town of Barrow, Alaska as it goes dark for 30 days because of it Northern latitude.

This is accomplished throughout the film, but an aerial shot early in the movie showing bands of citizens shooting vainly into vampires in the middle of main street, who summarily then rip them apart, creates a war scene that captures the essence of hopelessness and mayhem being wrought upon the sub-zero town.

Excellent plot structure

Another reason "30 Days of Night" is an instant horror classic is its strong plot structure.

The dual conflict of Barrow's sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) trying to figure out what went wrong between him and his estranged wife Stella ( Melissa George), who is stranded in the town because she missed the last plane out, and how to keep them and the surviving town members alive until the sun rises again, gives the film depth.

As the sheriff, his estranged wife and the townsfolk hide, huddled up in a small attic and watch as the band of vampires led by a bloodsucking monster named Marlow
(Danny Huston) use their fellow humans as bait to flush them out, the tension builds and makes you feel like this is the first horror movie you've ever seen!

Superlative vampires

But as good as the plot and acting is, the best component is the depiction of the vampires!

They speak an unknown Slavic-sounding language, which accentuates the ugliness of their believable, pale, distorted features -- and their hideous, razor-like teeth.

Marlow, the head vampire, is something of a harsh teacher, who speaks this tongue, which is translated with subtitles, whenever he wants to make an important point to his underlings.

In one scene after breaking the neck of the human slave after telling him he would reward him for making it possible for the vampires to invade Barrow, Marlow looks at his female companion vampire and says, "They are like children. They believe anything that we tell them."

In another scene when Marlow is about to tear the throat out of a townswoman and she calls upon God to help her, Marlow looks at her astonished and says: "God? There is no God!"

The other vampires move with lightening speed and quickly snatch their prey off to a hidden corner or under a crawl space to devour them like a piece of raw meat. Their depiction as putrid, sub-animal creatures of hell, comes across convincingly and makes one believe they are indeed real!

Surprise ending

Finally, without revealing the ending for those who have not seen the movie, I have to say it was inventive and somewhat surprising, if not sad.

The movie definitely lived up to its hype, and was well worth the price of admission!

Hi ced1, welcome! I haven't seen this movie so I don't have any substantive comments to make about it, but I wanted to make a stylistic suggestion. Consider putting your sentences into paragraph form. It'll flow better and you won't need your bold subject lines. Like so:

I'm also confused as to whether you're really talking about the DVD or the movie. You mention the DVD but don't discuss its technical merits, and then refer to the price of admission.

Anyway, congrats on starting your blog. I wish you success with your endeavor.

Thanks for the tips. All good. You are correct, I was talking about the movie, but I also purchased the DVD. I should have focused on one or the other.

Again, thanks.

I disagree with virtually every point of your review. I rented the Blu-ray Disc of this and was really looking forward to it, but was severely disappointed.



Stylish, but awful, movie.

i really wanna see this but i'm keeping my expectations low

thanks for posting the review!

The graphic novel by Niles and Templesmith is better than the flick at establishing the characters, even the vampires, and it has a better pace. Having said that, I still enjoyed most of the movie.

I liked it for the above reasons.

You are in the minority, if you read some of the major reviews.

Still, taste is an individual thing.

^Actually this film was not especially popular with the critics generally. Rotten Tomatoes shows slightly more unfavorable reviews than favorable generally, and only 45% freshness among top critics. I have no doubt though that this generally less than stellar reception may vary significantly from that of horror-genre reviewers and fans specifically.

Good point. Because I focus on the horror genre, and am a horror fan, I am talking about reviews among horror-genre reviewers.

The reality is that many movie fans and reviewers do not like horror, won't watch it -- and write it off entirely.

The movie, in my view, was a masterpiece and fresh in its approach.

I totally agree. Stylish, atmospheric and beautifully shot but certainly not more than a "fair" vampire film. maybe a 2 1/2 out of 5 film...,maybe. I'm referring to the Blu-Ray as I missed this in theaters.

I'd agree that the majority of critics, myself included, are not hardcore horror fans, but truly exception films receive critical recognition regardless of genre. Look at Rosemary's Baby - 98% freshness (meaning 98% favorable reviews), for example.

The movie's freshness is not in its subject matter, but in its depiction of the vampire, which was fresh, in my view. Or should I say, the freshness was that the producer when back to the beginning.

They are what I think vampires should be -- not romancing near humans, who regret they are vampires, but bloodsucking creatures who enjoy killing without remorse.

The freshness is that they don't share their plans or reasons with the audience, they just kill.


That is why I believe it was fresh, as well as the foreign language they spoke, the presentation of having 30-days of darkness to feast, etc.

However, those who do not agree with my assessment are certainly entitled to believe the movie was poor and not fresh at all. It would be nice if they would be very specific as to why it is not fresh.

I simply disagree.

I thought this movie was a piece of shit. Bad acting, poor pacing - laughs, where there should be scares. Just an embarrassment for everyone involved. But then, the source material was weak too - interesting concept, but mishandled every step of the way.

It may have been "fresh", whatever that means, but the doesn't necessarily make it good.

Obviously, I disagree. But it is amazing how some see it as a great horror flick, while other see it as dreg.

Thanks for your thoughts!

I was really looking forward to it and I love the idea and story but then there were too many flaws. As said before they could have just went house by house to find the remaining humans. Maybe even burn house by house to find them as they wanted to burn the whole town anyway in the end to cover their traces. The time jumps were too extreme. Many days just pass by without anything. Don't we humans have to go to the bathroom? Why would you try to reach the facility at the end instead of just waiting? Great idea, I love the way the vampires are, great story but not a solid movie. Too many things that made no sense to me.

Dirk

PS I still like the movie but I think it could it could have been so much better.

I'm with ya, ced1! I enjoyed this movie alot and thought that the vampires were a nice spin on the usual. I really liked their eyes. I can't stand Anne Rice style vamps myself.

Thank you! That was my point. I am sick of those sissy vamps and hearing about all their inner conflicts. This movie gave me the rotten, scum, sub-animal, evil, blood suckers I love to watch!!!

In my view, there's so many people that behave like rotten, scum, sub-animal, evil, blood suckers in the real world, that seeing anybody in a Hollywood film, vampire or otherwise, show a little bit of introspection before or after doing something nasty is a refreshing bit of escapism.

That's where you and I will have to agree to disagree. I think some acts can't be explained by psycho-babel, or feel-good, self-help, do-gooders!

Instead, I believe some people, and I clearly include Anne-Rice like vamps, use these excuses to shield the truth: they're just plain evil.

At least the vampires in 30 days of night, make no pretense that they give a damn about feelings or morality: they just do their thing!

That's all nice and good and I agree but the problem with the movie are all the flaws in the storyline. That's what takes away from it.

Dirk

What flaws are you referring to? I'm curious.

As I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread.

1.) There could have been hundreds of buildings, and the vampires -- although somewhat intelligent -- were caught up in a feeding frenzy, and the sub-zero temperatures slowed them down a bit. They also knew they could be trapped by humans, who are cunning, so they were cautious. Also, the survivors were well hidden in an attic.

Lastly, the vampires had a lot of food stored up and were more interested in gorging themselves, instead of burning buildings. These are creatures -- not engineers.

2.) Hey, they went to the bathroom in pails, bowls or whatever was available.

3. Each day was the same, with the vampires gorging themselves, playing with the survivors by tormenting them -- so what would be the point to show that over and over? The filmmaker made the point strongly, as to what was happening.

Finally, they waited until the end, because they felt they would soon be discovered -- which they were -- because of the old man with dementia wandering away.

So to me, what you view as flaws, were parts of a good story line.

Well, if you see it that way. I don't remember seeing hundreds of houses, but who knows, but even then, they burned them in the end why not before? You can't tell me that they were busy eating for 20 days or so. There weren't enough humans around, not after how they started killing the first day or so. I also don't know what the vampires were doing in between as we weren't told, as far as I remember. The story jumped many days ahead. Oh, and to go back to the sub zero temperatures. I live in an area where it gets down to -15F sometimes and I don't think you survive days in an unheated attic or under a house or something like that. Sorry, too many flaws.

Dirk

there are a fair amount of negative or meh reviews of this... but a lot of people are giving it props


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