30 Days of Night, an adaptation of the miniseries by Ben Templesmith and Steve Niles, is a red-blooded and gory thriller that’s hardly haunting but surely shocking and sometimes, weirdly philosophical.

The night is filled with subliminal messages – shots of bared fangs dripping with blood inserted periodically, shadows cast carefully, and chilling humming played so softly –all aimed at shaking and frightening all unsuspecting souls.

The Nights

And frightened you will be when isolated, small town Barrow, Alaska sees its last sunset for 30 days. Not wanting to be plunged in darkness, many of Barrows’ inhabitants head south while the rest carry on with their lives in the dark. This year, however, a pack of vengeful vampires take up in the town. Their aim? Show humans that they really do exist.

The few brave souls who decide that they’re tough enough to bear cold and darkness are bewildered when a strange man (Ben Foster) goes on a crime spree. The man is arrested and, when in jail, rails off some mumbo-jumbo about creatures that “are coming”. 

His role in this reckoning is not clear but it doesn’t matter because those creatures really do begin their feast and rampage for revenge. The residents are suitably horrified and puzzled by the visitors but continue with their mantra of “vampires don’t exist”. Of course, it is this attitude that angers the vamps and they decide to wipe out the Alaskan town.

It then falls upon the shoulders of Eben Olesen (Josh Hartnett), the Sheriff of Barrow and his estranged wife, Stella Olesen (Melissa George) to save the day (or night).

There are at least 3 markers in between the whole ordeal to help count down the number of days to sunrise and until then, the killing goes on, the survivors obviously dwindle, 1 or 2 unsurprisingly start losing their tempers and a few make the expected heroic sacrifices.

Rays of Sunshine

One cannot fault David Slade for his intense cinematography that saw quick, ominous shadows, a tiny girl hunch over from the weight of her coat crawling down an empty street swirling with snow, the careful under-lighting of the vampires, and the close-ups of thick, gelatinous black oil and hot, sticky blood on pristine, white snow.

It is with similar deliberation that he pieces his montages and it was clear during the particularly powerful scene when Sheriff Eben walks towards Marlow and his Vamps. The special effects and swift cuts compensated for the limp vampire groupies who merely contorted their few prosthetics in seeming menace.

The heart-racing and terrifying close-ups were made scarier by the haunting, adrenaline-pumping score that sounded like it came from a classical orchestra on PCP (a recreational drug known as Phencyclidine or killer weed). It was suiting, nonetheless, as the plonking of the piano and thumps from the timpani mirrored blood dripping rapidly onto hollow floors and empty, copper pipes.

The filmmakers will need to be credited for keeping the feel and look of the original miniseries. The vampires’ make-up was kept to a minimum and the town was dotted with ramshackle huts and leaning lamp posts, much like those depicted in Templesmith and Niles’ initial drawings.

The best part of the movie is perhaps Marlow (Danny Huston), the striking leader of the vampires. He’s the Don of the Mob of the Undead and is a rather handsome character who leads his vampires admirably. He’s his best when, crouching over a body, he lifts his head, slicks back his hair with warm, fresh blood, and declares, with blood flying off his teeth, that the vampires will no longer just be the stuff of nightmares.

The Blood Bath

But Slade’s meticulous directing and Marlow’s dominance take a hit when the lack of chemistry between the Olesens and the many inconsistencies become disconcerting.

It’s almost laughable when Marlow bends down, pouts and growls, “No God”. How can you not wonder how Marlow, who speaks “Vampire”, would know what “no” means?

And when Beau Bower (Mark Boone, Jr), stands in the middle of a house with a box of explosives and blows himself up but does not die, it’sthe last straw.

Also, the dialogue is sometimes overtly philosophical, corny and anticipated, especially when the Olesens realise that they should never have quarreled and stiltedly profess that they never forgot the others’ voice.

On that note, one would think that with a sophisticated Mob-like vampire pack, there’ll be another way in which they multiplied. But sadly, they multiply by biting and once bitten, humans become vamps and these vamps are indeed afraid of light.

Thankfully, the humans got creative after awhile and start butchering and severing heads using axes and giant snow plow-like, tree-clearing vehicles with spinning chainsaws.

It’s because of these pitfalls that you wonder if the movie’s storyline has been modified a wee bit far from the graphic mini-series.

Clearly, 30 Days of Night has its dark and incomprehensible troughs, but you’ll be so shocked, scared, disgusted and mesmerised by the Marlow’s passion and Hartnett’s resonating voice of reason that you won’t hanker over the horribly liberal use of epithets, highly predictable plotline or meagre ending till the gory and frankly, entertaining credits stop rolling. That is, if your legs aren’t shaking from witnessing the gruesome massacre.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Movie Details:

Opens: Nov 29

Running Time: 113 mins

Language: English

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George

Director: David Slade