Oldschool vampire horror

Rating: 5/10 (5 January 2016)

30 Days of Night starts very promising. It plays somewhere in Alaska, which removes the need for a supernatural phenomenon to make the sun go down for thirty days. The lead character, played by Josh Hartnett, has charisma, a simple but acceptable background and does a good job of moving the story forward.
The vampires are portrayed as they should be. As intelligent, bloodthirsty predators with only few human features left. The film succeeds at showing how they prepare their attack on a naturally isolated target area in a subtle way. They even look scary at times, although resemble the wood elves of The Elder Scrolls video games a little too closely for my taste.
However, the movie suffers from a devastating flaw that is far too common to the genre: Overly stupid side characters. Starting with the cliché whiny boy, who has the word "juicy target" stamped on his forehead, to the senile elderly, of whom you just know that he'll get someone killed.
It also takes far too long for any character to try out this thing called "headshots". A testament to the NRA education of the armed public, I guess.
I just cannot stomach films with monster newbies anymore. Anyone who has ever seen a vampire film would have been considered an accomplish expert at undead extermination by the cast of 30 Days of Night. I do not need a lengthy introduction phase to the nature of horror movies anymore when watching a horror movie. Many other films have successfully solved this problem by adding a character who is a horror fan or has at least heard about the genre.
Another minor flaw is that I never really got the feeling of watching a town go through thirty days of slaughter. Its one night, and not a very long one either. Apart from a few beards growing, there is little that would give it away to the audience.
30 Days of Night is a decent reminder of the "real" vampires, before Twilight turned them into cuddly teenager fantasies. It has a lot of substance, but lacks interesting characters and a proper story.