Horror Movie Reviews

More Details... Price: $28.95

Title: 30 Days of Night (2007) Starring: Josh Hartnett, Craig Hall, and Melissa George Director: Not available Rating: R (Restricted) Runtime: 113 minutes Avg. Score: 4 Submit Comment Hits: 188

Review of 30 Days of Night

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Movie Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Submit Comment

Comments for 30 Days of Night

• Posted on 2008-07-03
  Not for the weak of heart
  
  Talk about a bloodfest, if you are weak of heart and afraid of blood, this is not for you. But if you are like me and can watch anything with the lights off and no one in the house, this the film for you. Very violent and plenty of intense moments. This is the kind of movie thats jumps out the screen at you at the theatre or whereever you maybe.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2008-06-21
  I'm one of the view who actually loved this movie!!!
  
  Realizing that people have different opinions about what they read and watch, and that not all will agree with each other on what's good and what isn't, I was still somewhat surprised by how many viewers didn't find the horror movie, 30 Days of Night, to be as great as I did. I'm usually pretty hard on horror flicks and don't expect a lot when I go to see one, but 30 Days of Night won me over in a way that left me stunned at the end of the movie and wanting to immediately see it again.
  
  Directed by David Slade, the story takes place in Barrow, Alaska (a real town), which is in the northern part of the state and once a year experiences thirty days of night. Most of the town's people head south for the entire month, but there are enough human left to entice a group of roving vampires to spend some quality vacation time there. It all begins when a stranger arrives (played wonderfully by Ben Foster) during the last day of light and cuts the telephone lines and kills the sled dogs so that the remaining town's people will be snowed in and unable to escape the wrath of his master, Marlow. The vampires then waste little time in attacking the town and killing every human being they can get their hands and teeth on. It's the town's sheriff (played by Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife (played by Melissa George) who manage to gather the surviving citizens and to find a place where they can hide from their hungry predators. The problem, of course, is finding a way to stay alive until the sun once again appears after thirty long days of night. That's going to be the challenge and few are going to make it.
  
  I thoroughly loved this movie and have watched it about twelve times, enjoying every single viewing. Though I'm not a big fan of Josh Hartnett, he won me over as the sheriff and I found his character to be totally believable. I also felt that all of the other actors did an excellent job as well, especially Danny Huston, who played Marlow, the lead vampire. He was utterly terrifying. I thought the vampires were played true to life in that they were portrayed as savage, violent predators, killing everything within their grasp so that they could feed on the blood. They were unbelievably fast and didn't hesitate for a second in taking someone's head off, separating it from the body with one powerful sweep of their clawed hands. The desolation of Barrow was captured perfectly by the set designer and director of photography as the camera took in from above what was happening below as dozens and dozens of people were massacred in different parts of the town by the marauding vampires. This movie had me literally sitting on the edge of my seat and jumping in all the right places. In many ways I thought this was the best horror flick of 2007, running just ahead of the film, 1408, with John Cusack.
  
  With regards to the DVD, I think I was close to being the first person to buy it when it eventually came out. I was hoping the movie would be released in a Special Two-Disc Collector's set, but it only came out as a single disc. Bah, humbug! Still, there's a great featurette on the making of the film, containing interviews with the cast members and crew, plus a look at the real Barrow, Alaska. The strange thing is that when the DVD came out, my roommate's daughter was getting ready to fly to Alaska with some friends, and I kept trying to get her to watch the movie before she left. No go. She didn't want to have nightmares the whole time that she was there, freezing in below-zero temperatures. I would've gone to Aruba, myself! LOL. Anyway, this film certainly has a special place in my DVD collection of horror films. Highly recommended!
  
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-06-21
  Gorgeously crafted and completely inane
  
  As the sun sets on Barrow, Alaska, for its annual month of arctic night, the town is beset by a series of sabotages which soon escalate into violent attacks. Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and Stella (Melissa George), his estranged fire-marshal wife who is trapped in Barrow when she misses the last plane out, quickly discover the town is being invaded by vampires. With no sunlight to save them for another 30 days, they and the usual rag-tag bunch of disposable companions have an impossible fight on their hands... Beautifully shot by Jo Willems this film's visual style is the best thing about it. It really is an exquisite-looking failure. What's missing is any real tension or suspense. The setup is wonderful, but the plotting is lame. Once the terrified locals figure out what's afoot, there's nothing driving the plot but the obvious and rather non-narrative urge to bunker down and wait it out. As it happens, that's surprisingly easy given the vampires seem to have amazing physicality but no common sense. There are cheats aplenty, with the survivors wandering through blizzards and somehow magically moving from building to building with ease, when at other times they dare not open the door for fear of attack. The size of both the town and the band of blood-suckers seem to change for convenience. There's very little in the way of innovation from the survivors, who only rarely lock-on to what this kind of story always requires of them: "Hey, let's figure out what these creatures are, what kills them, and what we might be able to do with what little resources we have!" The climax is unmotivated and absurd. Similarly, the love story has a nice setup but isn't used, except as the pretext for a feeble romantic ending that seems shoe-horned into place. Hartnett plays himself, as always. George has nothing to work with, and Danny Huston is a rather boring villain, mainly because the screenplay gives him no complexity and nothing to do. When director David Slade hits his stride with some action set pieces, he shows he has talent. But again, the screenplay gives him scant opportunities to show his stuff. This really is a squandered chance to do something fresh with a promising spin on an old genre. But it certainly does look great.
  Score: 2
• Posted on 2008-06-16
  ONE OF THE BEST VAMPIRE FILMS IN YEARS
  
  When 30 Day of Night first came out in comic form back in 2002, I was only reading comics casually. Still, I kept hearing more and more about the series. The first issue had already escalated ridiculously in value and I didn't read it until it was published in collected format. My initial thoughts upon finishing the book were that it would make a great movie. The idea of vampires attacking a town near the Arctic Circle that is shrouded in darkness for a month was quite brilliant and terrifying as well.
  
  Barrow is that little, Alaskan town whose population is drastically reduced when the Sun finally sets for thirty days. Most of the inhabitants head for warmer and brighter areas, leaving only the heartiest folk behind. Using a lead lackey, the vampires cut the town off from the outside world...destroying cell phones, knocking out power and phone lines, and killing all the sled dogs. The vampires descend upon the town like death itself, killing every person they can find. Only a small group of survivors led by Sheriff Eben Oleson (Hartnett) and his wife Stella (George), manage to flee the slaughter but will they survive to see the Sun eventually rise?
  
  Great care was taken by director David Slade and his team to maintain the look and feel of the comic book. Slade refers to the look as a "metallic coldness" which is a great description of Ben Templesmith's unusual sketchy art style. The darkness is overwhelming for the residents of Barrow and their feeling of helplessness is quickly evident. The vampires are not the alluring, seductive type out of an Ann Rice book...these monsters are pure predators, their mouths gape with rows of razor-sharp teeth. They don't just bite their victims they gnaw and tear at them. Humans are only food to these creatures. Slade went so far as to develop a primeval, guttural language for the vampires, although they speak rarely. Danny Huston is the head vampire and is simply chilling. He's almost completely emotionless as he leads the vampires through the town. Their look, language, and mannerisms almost suggest the vampires are not former humans, but a different race altogether.
  
  There is some fascinating camera work in 30 Days of Night. As humans flee down the street we see the vamps following them from the rooftops, stalking them as if it were a game. There are also some great aerial views that simply show the vampires attacking anything that moves indiscriminately, and it puts the wholesale slaughter into perspective. Our survivors move from building to building, trying to stay hidden. This suspense drives much of the middle of the film as they try and figure out their next move.
  
  30 Days of Night is not without its weaknesses. The opening twenty minutes seemed rushed and almost unbelievable that someone could manage to steal and burn the all the town's cell phones. I mean, I know I'd miss mine if it were gone for more than 15 minutes. The same rather implausible ending from the comics was carried over to the film. This is the one area where I had hoped for something a bit grander. There's not much character development either. We know that Eben and Stella a re estranged but that sub-plot is never explored in any detail.
  
  As a bit of trivia, Mark Boone Junior who plays Beau, also appeared in John Carpenter's Vampires, another outstanding vampire film. 30 Days isn't flawless, but it's certainly one of the best vampire films to come out in a long time. Return to Barrow Anyone?
  
  Extras
  
  30 Days of night comes with a nice set of extra features. The audio commentary features Hartnett, George, and Producer Rob Tapert. The commentary is very lively and there are none of those uncomfortable periods of dead silence that you sometimes get in commentary tracks. Hartnett not only read the graphic novel but was determined that the film be as faithful to the comic as possible, which is very refreshing. One interesting note that George pointed out is that whenever you can see a person's breath in the film, it was all created by CGI.
  
  There is an 8 part documentary about the making of the film that can be watched all together or separately. The entire set runs just under 60 minutes.
  
  Some of the more interesting parts include how the vampire actors were instructed how to walk, scream, and attack. They all had to practice that move of leaping on their prey and tearing at their throats. There's a look at the various prosthetics that were created and the make-up, including a look at the gruesome beheading of the little girl vampire.
  
  As explained in "The Look" segment, the dingy, dark-toned look of the characters wasn't achieved with make-up, but rather through digital enhancements.
  
  As an added bonus, the DVD feature the first episode of the hit Anime series Blood+
  
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2008-06-13
  30 Days of Night
  
  This movie would have been an instant classic if they fleshed out the characters. The acting is surprisingly good for a contemporary horror movie. However, the tension build-up isn't given enough time before spattering into a gore-fest.
  
  The vampires are viscerally brutal; more so than in most vampire movies. They aren't chic, hip, or decadent - they shriek, decapitate, and gnaw to the bone.
  
  Josh Hartnett is well-casted, as is Melissa George. There simply isn't enough character development in the movie to warrant a score higher than three stars. In a contemporary horror movie, if one has gotten as far as making me care about the actual characters opposed to how and when I watch them get slaughtered, that warrants three stars alone. It's a shame they didn't run with this; there is so much untapped potential that I watch it repeatedly, hoping it will eventually show itself.
  Score: 3