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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 5591
Released: February 26, 2008 |
| Our Price: $5.70 |
| Used Price: $1.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Josh Harnett (Black Dahlia, Pearl Harbor) crosses over to the dark side in this bone-chilling adaptation of the cult-hit graphic novel, brought to the screen in all its demonic glory. In a small Alaskan town, thirty days of night is a natural phenomenon. Very few outsiders visit, until a band of bloodthirsty, deathly pale vampires mark their arrival by savagely attacking sled dogs. But soon they find there are much more satisfying thirst-quenchers about: human beings. One by one, the townspeople succumb to a living nightmare, but a small group survives - at least for now. The vampires use the dark to their advantage, and surviving this cold hell is a game of cat and mouse - and screams.
Description of 30 Days of Night:
David (Hard Candy) Slade directs this nerve-jangling adaptation of the popular graphic novel series about a mob of vampires that overruns a remote Alaskan town in the grip of 30 Days of Night. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George are the film's de facto heroes (he's the stoic town sheriff and she's his estranged fire-marshal wife) but the picture's real MVP is Slade's camera (along with cinematographer Jo Willems), which careens across the town's snowy landscape to detail the vampires' horrific assault on its inhabitants, which are quickly pared down to a hardy few. The script, co-written by the source material's creator, Steve Niles, along with Pirates of the Caribbean's Stuart Beattie and Hard Candy's Brian Nelson), proudly wears its influences on its crimson-stained sleeve (Bram Stoker's Dracula, natch, but also Salem's Lot, Night of the Living Dead, and John Carpenter's version of The Thing) and boils down the graphic novels to a series of tense and extremely bloody standoffs between Harnett and George's band of survivors and the vaguely Slavic and ferocious bloodsuckers led by Marlow (a feral and frightening Danny Huston). And if the characters seem stock and the finale begs suspension of disbelief, the set pieces leading up to it are sufficiently supercharged with suspense and violence to please most horror fans. Standouts in the supporting cast are Ben Foster as the film's Renfield figure and Mark Boone Junior; the disturbing score by Brian Reitzell also merits a mention. --Paul Gaita
Stills from 30 Days of Night (click for larger image)
Beyond 30 Days of Night
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30 Days of Night Reviews:
A vampire movie for adults 
2009-12-14 - When the isolated town of Barrow, Alaska has its yearly occurrence of 30 days without sunlight, the majority of townsfolk begin their migration towards civilization. Those that remain expect a quiet, albeit dark, escape from routine. When their connection to the outside world gets cut off - electricity, internet, the emergency helicopter, even the sled dogs - the darkness becomes the least of their worries.
The explosion of violence that follows is jaw dropping, as a collection of vampires wreaks bloody havoc throughout, with the lead vampire giving instruction to essentially kill everyone. And the best part is, they get the vampires exactly as I like them. They are bloodthirsty killers with superhuman strength, seeking to feast on the blood of every town inhabitant. Absolutely mesmerizing in every way, the vampires scream through blood-soaked fangs, and leap on their prey like animals. The vampires' screeching howls, like owls being butchered, are bloodcurdling. Among the more memorable vampires is what I like to call "Goldberg vampire," a brutal killer with a slight resemblance to the wrestler. Other significant vampires look like Marilyn Manson and Suzanne Summers, which make the murders somewhat enjoyable at times.
As the living humans scatter in fear, director David Slade absolutely cranks it up a notch by making nearly every aspect of the movie an extension of fear. The atmosphere is lethal; the music is creepy, and the isolation of the town itself provides for drastic color changes, drastic blood red on blinding snow white, is terrifying perfection. The absolute best scene, cinematographically speaking, is top-down scrolling look as chaos reigns supreme, with everyone and everything running haphazardly, as carnage overtakes reason.
Battling the bloodthirsty predators is Josh Hartnett, the town sheriff, and his wife Stella (Melissa George). Dropping off one by one, it's Hartnett and a few others relying on their wits and their knowledge of the town to stay alive. Vicious and intense, the only flaw in this gore-fest is the final battle - not the outcome - as the desire to produce a predictable ending forced the filmmakers to include an absurd action from a previously level-headed character. Overall, however, this is an excellent, modern addition to the vampire genre which currently needs less sparkling and more killing.
Jason Elin
Think; Pitch Black - then think; on ice: but better still - don't think! 
2009-11-20 - Picture this - a group of seals with a sprinkling of sea lions thrown in just to beef up the macho quotient of the group, is preyed upon in icy cold seas by a progressively larger group of ravenous killer whales and many of the smaller mammals are played with, butchered and devoured by the marauding killers amid a feast of blood, gore and very squishy special effects. But a few hardy little beasts, though clearly terrified out of their wits get it into their heads that they can survive and even beat their attackers because this is their territory - they know places to hide that are (relatively) safe where they think they might be able to wait out the `orrible orcas!
Well, a similar scenario is put before us in this numbingly boneheaded effort. How long can the cute little seals hold out against the overwhelmingly powerful, devastatingly voracious, heart-clenchingly vicious, highly evolved killing machines waiting to tear them apart, gobble them up and, in a few cases, rip off their heads before consuming them: a few minutes; a couple of hours at the most? No! A full 30 days! I don't know about anyone else but I find it tricky doing anything more complex than manipulating my keys to unlock my front door if the temperature drops one degree below zero for a few hours in broad daylight let alone trying to do it at 15 below in total darkness with a group of crazed super sensitive, super fast, super powerful vampires, who can see in the dark, nearby, trying to rip my head off. Yeh, all right - it's a movie but come on - credit the audience with a bit of intelligence! Okay, maybe not.
Oh, and the ending? Simply laughable!
A Decent Film not without Holes 
2009-10-19 - I avoided this movie for a long time as the previews just made it look all-around cheesy. It was better than I thought it would be, though not fantastic.
I certainly would not call this "the best vampire movie ever" as many others have.
It's a pretty stereotypical horror movie really. It even follows your usual formula for who lives and dies. The character who wants to run off and leave someone else behind to die is the one who dies himself and then you have your run-of-the-mill hero who sacrifices himself along with your troubled, but reliable-when-it-matters leading man and tough, gun-wielding blonde leading lady. Just the same as almost every other movie of this type.
The flaws in this film are: Wouldn't people eventually ask questions when every year an entire Alaskan town is wiped out in winter by a blood-sucking "fire"? I am assuming that the vampires have to eat at least once every year, so this would keep happening over and over. And where do the vampires buy all their business suits and silver moonboots? And why are they speaking the Mayan language from Apocalypto? And (the most important question) Why, oh why! Don't they actually drink any of the blood? They rip people's throats open and get as much of the blood as possible on the top of their own heads and they spill as much as they can all over the ground, but not one drop seems to ever get inside their fish-like, gaping maws.
My final note: The high-pitched screaming noise they make at every turn = very annoying.
Overall the movie is a solid C, possibly even a C-. It's watchable, sure, but it's certainly not the best movie you're going to see this Halloween.
Real Vampires 
2009-10-13 - One of the best vampire movies made (along with "Let the Right One In"). This is exactly how I would imagine vampires. Why would vampires mess around? They wouldn't. They would tear you apart and eat you. But at the same time, they can control their actions and plan things out.
This is also a cool portrayal of how a small group of vampires would survive...and get away with it...most of the time....
No integrity in the story or the acting. 
2009-09-21 - Very truthfully, this movie had potential, but ended up sucking very hard.
I for one will point out if something doesn't make sense or if supposedly intelligent characters are repeatedly responding to impending doom and ungodly terror all DUI. I care about the set-up, whats at stake, the characters themselves (I always was facinated with the bad guys), and yes, the story. This is a mess and it's a shame. The premise rocks. It's so painfully obvious, how was this not already done years ago? You couldn't ask for a better setting. Dark, cold and isolated, as a previous reviewer pointed out. And I must say that some of the vamps looked eerie as hell. I couldn't rip my eyes away. Gorgeously evil, I mean really beautifully scary. A kind of deformed look with the eyes a bit too close together. Some of them looked normal like the boss vamp himself. Not so scary. But other than that it bit the dust. Just stupid as hell. Dumb moves by the heroes, vampires trying to be philisophical or just walking around hissing at each other (really annoying, the worst part of the whole deal). I wasted my money, watch it on t.v. Not kidding. Hit Amazon up for the graphic novels, much better. This adaption was a wasted effort. Sam Raimi strikes again.
