30 Days of Night gives savage new blood to vampire genre!

Rating: 9/10 (21 October 2007)

First, here's a bit of backstory for you. As you know by now, Streebo is a long time reader of comic books and when the story of 30 Days of Night came out in 2003 (?) I was eager to read it. I was immediately impressed by the simplicity of the concept  if not the execution. Ben Templesmith's dark and atmospheric art helped keep the book horrific and violent throughout. The story by Steve Niles was unchallenging, simple and brilliant all at the same time. I remember reading the book and thinking this was a cool enough graphic novel  but it would make an amazing movie. Apparently Steve Niles originally wrote 30 Days of Night as a screenplay and shopped it around Hollywood for years. He never drew interest in the script  so he converted the script into a graphic novel. The comic comes out and is a huge hit. The next thing you know Hollywood comes knocking on Steve Niles' door. Niles dusted off his script and Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse pictures gave him a one million dollar check for it. Now fast forward four years later. . .
30 Days of Night tells the story of the northernmost Alaskan town of Barrow as it prepares to face the seasonal event of 30 sunless days and nights. Over two thirds of the town's population packs up and leaves for the month as most people cannot handle the experience of living through 30 days without seeing the sun. Little do they know there is something much worse than simple darkness descending upon their town. 30 Days of night follows the story of town sheriff Eben as he struggles with a small band of locals that try to survive their 30 days trapped in a town overrun by vampires.
Strange events begin early as Eben discovers that almost ever cell phone in the town has been stolen and burned to a crisp. Next, every sled dog in the town is slaughtered. Then the phone lines go out and lastly the power to the town is cut. It's holy sh)*t time. There are no namby-pamby-love-me-long-time-I'm-immortal vampires in this film. These vampires are feral, nasty, and very hungry. The performances from the cast are strong all around. The vampires are kept in the dark for the most part  making them extremely frightening when they burst forth to drag people though the streets and rend them limb from limb.
The cinematography is appropriately atmospheric and captures the bleak landscape in cold unforgiving detail. There is one moment depicting a bird's eye view of the town streets as the vampires toss townspeople about like bloody beads at Mardi Gras. The scene is truly horrific and breathtaking in it's savagery. The tension starts with a bang as the vampires swarm through the streets and never lets up as the survivors try to come to terms with what is happening. 30 Days of Night is a horror film in every sense of the term. It is cold, humorless and completely unrelenting. As I watched in stunned silence with the crowd  I couldn't help but recall the nihilistic tone of John Carpenter's The Thing. That's high praise indeed coming from me and one I don't give lightly.
I don't want to talk the film up too much resulting in a letdown of expectations for some of you. If you're in the need for your theatrical horror film fix  don't wait for Saw 4  30 Days of Night is waiting to rip your throat out. Go see it.
Streebo gives 30 Days of Night a 9 out of 10 on the Streebo Scream-O-Meter.