30 Days of Night

[Tyyr]

Has anyone else seen this movie? It came on FX Saturday night and I was pleasantly surprised.

Synopsis, the town of Barrow, Alaska lies far enough north that once a year in the dead of winter the town gets no sun for 30 days straight, none. This little detail attracts the attention of a group of vampires. They arrange for a familiar (not a term used in the film, just a rough term) to help sabotage some things like wrecking the town's only plane, stealing cell phones and killing sled dogs. By the time the 30 days of night start Barrow is cut off from the outside world. The vampires descend and in an orgy of violence slaughter the town. A few people escape and hide out, trying to avoid vampires, starvation, and freezing to death while waiting out the night.

The big thing here is that we're getting away from the idea of pretty vampires, or even relatable ones. You really can't even pity the creatures in this movie as they are all total and complete monsters both in action and appearance. It's kind of refreshing to see vampires portrayed as bad guys with no redeeming features after two decades of pussification by Hollywood.

And yes, for those of you who are going to mention it I am well aware that is not how the lack of daylight works up North or even remotely what the real Barrow is like.

[Tsukiyumi]

Loved it, personally. For pretty much all of the reasons you listed.

[Mikey]

Never saw it, and never intended to. Didn't this film star Josh Hartnett? That's a pretty big strike against it, in my book.

[Tyyr]

Eh, he's not a strong point of the movie. I'm not about to give any of the actors any real credit but he doesn't hurt it in my opinion.

[Mikey]

he doesn't hurt it

Well, that's better than most of his performances.

[Graham Kennedy]

Didn't really do it for me.

Do we need spoilers?I'll go with it for now...

I would rather have seen more of a battle. I had imagined going in that it would be kinda like a slasher movie, where the town's population gradually dwindles as the vamps take victim after victim. I wanted them coming up with defences, ways to fight back, that kind of thing.

Instead, it pretty much seems that as soon as it goes dark the vamps slaughter 95% of the entire population in a few hours, and then we have basically 29 days of vampires wandering around an apparently deserted town whilst half a dozen survivors hide out in an attic. Okay it makes the vamps look all badass and stuff... though if they're THAT Badass why aren't they ruling the world anyway? Being outnumbered hundreds to one doesn't seem to be a problem for them. But in any case, it means that for most of the 30 days everyone is basically sitting on their asses doing nothing, which seems kinda pointless.