Vampires are probably one of the oldest monsters in human history, having existed in various forms, in various countries, for centuries. The fear of a creature that comes to us in the night, to feed off of our very life force, is one that transcends time and culture. But what is it that we're really afraid of? Perhaps it's the thing that dwells just outside of the light that was once one of us. Perhaps it's a fear of our most morbid, dark desires taking control. Our perhaps it's just the fear of some creepy fucker biting us.
Whatever it is, popular culture of late has taken the idea of a vampire, and turned it into a pussy. We have homo-erotic kissing emo vamps. We have private dick vamps. We have superhero vamps. We even have little kids vamps that run around with the Jerry Maguire "the human head weighs eight pounds" kid, making gags, goofs, and giggles.
What happened to scary vampires? I still remember watching Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot, and being afraid to look out my window at night, for fear I'd have a dead friend floating there, scratching to get in. And as stylish as they were, at least the vampires in Lost Boys ripped people to shreds as they ate them. None of this kissy necking crap.
30 Days of Night looks to bring the vampire back up on the list of scary shit again. In the film, the northern most town in the United States, which experiences a whole month without any sunlight once a year, is besieged by a group of ravenous vampires looking to take advantage of this scientific fun-fact. A group of humans, who survive the initial attack, go into hiding, hoping to last a month without getting eaten. Pretty scary sounding, right?
The film is based on the graphic novel by Steven Niles and Ben Templesmith, which for some dubious reason, is called "groundbreaking". In regards to the book, I always felt the art was barely discernable, and the story was poorly paced. But I loved the concept, and always felt it would make a better-written novel, or better yet, a good film.
And that's what we got- a good film. Not a great film, but one of the best horror films in the past few years. As I like to try and focus on the positive in life, I'll get the couple of bad things out of the way, first.
Pacing. I'm a pacing nazi. Beyond the bad art, pacing was my number one problem with the graphic novel. It never felt like it took place over a month's time. Maybe a few days, max. With the film, we get the same thing, and while it's not as bad as the comic, once you get past the 1st act (which is well done), the time the survivors spend held up seems like maybe a week, or so. I realize you can't show every single day, but randomly tacking on title cards that say "Day 15", or whatever, and then cutting to the humans who seem like they're in the same condition as when we last left them on "Day 7", doesn't work. Where these just added as an after thought?
And besides the macro pacing, there's also the micro pacing of certain scenes, which was a little inconsistent. Without giving anything away, there's a scene where on of the characters goes off to distract the vampires, while the others attempt to get away. When you see what he does for a distraction, it's pretty badass, but there's no build to it. It just kind of lazily cuts to the character doing his/her thing, so you're like "What? Huh? Oh, I guess that's bad ass..." I was especially frustrated with this scene, because there could have been such a better build to it, which was soooo obvious. Oh well. There were a few other nitpicks like this, but I'm tired, and want to talk about the good stuff.
The good- while the visuals in the comic are wretched, the visuals in this, especially the 1st act, are awesome. Director David Slade continues his great visual style (that really stood out in Hard Candy), and shoots the cold northern lands like a fucking painting. And an ominous painting at that.
Speaking of ominous, there's some great dread that's built up in the beginning. When "The Stranger", played creep-note perfect by Ben Foster (the pointless Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand, and the awesome Charlie Prince in 3:10 to Yuma), shows up and starts doing his creepy things, there's this great menace that starts growing.
The vampires are portrayed here like frenzied piranha, tearing through whatever they set their black eyes on. The leader of them, Marlow (Danny Hudson), is the real creep-champ of the film, though. His unchanging expression, and his soulless eyes remind me more of Bruce the Shark from Jaws, than a typical vampire we're used to seeing. He just wants to eat you, and that's it.
Most of the humans are pretty typical monster fodder, which is okay. At least Josh Hartnet, as the film's lead, finally looks like a man who can handle some shit, and not just some twenty-something "generic guy" he's played in the past. I like him.
The overall action of the film is fast-paced, and not too overbearing with style. I only point this out because there were some early reviews I read, that sited this as a problem, but I just didn't see it.
While I don't think it's fair to match 30 Days of Night against some the vamp movies I think are classic, I do think it's fair to put it up against some of the horror movies we've gotten in the past 5 or so years. It's a great example of not relying on the rights to a foreign movie, only to remake it, or remaking a classic film for no reason. If it's so hard to come up with an original scary movie, go to comics or novels. There are decades of great stuff out there.
Anyway, I'm glad that we have this film out there, as a return to a cool monster flick, as a return to a scary vampire flick, and as a return to original horror flicks, in general. And with The Mist and Trick R Treat on the way, here's to hoping this turns into a trend in horror movies overall.
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