The Best Vampire Movie Since Blade 2

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2007)

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel of the same name, 30 Days Of Night utilises a premise so obvious that you wonder why it's never been filmed before. A small Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for thirty days of the year and a small army of vampires decide to make use of the lack of light to indulge in a feeding frenzy.
The vampire genre in the celluloid world has become somewhat tired over the years and the familiarity we have them has lessened their impact. However, 30 Days Of Night goes some way towards refreshing things by portraying vampires as primal creatures which run around in packs ripping out throats with rows of needle-like teeth and spraying blood all over the place. Make no mistake; these aren't your Anne Rice vampires. These things are lethal killing machines with more in common with a group of wild dogs than human beings. They don't want to seduce you. They want to suck your veins clean as quickly as possible.
This is a bloody movie - and rightly so. A wonderful scene early in the movie shows the impact of the vampires' rampage throughout the town as the camera flows overhead following trails of red which glisten upon the pure white snow. These things are messy eaters you see - imagine thirty days of gorging on blood and never wiping your face, and that's what these vampires look like.
That's not to say that these vampires have no personality. The lead vampire in particular (played by the wonderful Danny Huston - an actor whose performances I've enjoyed in Children Of Men and The Constant Gardener) is an identifiable character dripping in menace whilst peering at his victims with soulless black eyes.
The human characters are well cast here and each gets their own moment to shine. I've never really been a big fan of Josh Hartnett but he does a good job at portraying a man whom others look up to. As the town's Sheriff, the job of protecting the few survivors falls to him and you can see the pain and grief on his face as those around him are gradually turned into slabs of bloody meat.
That this is David Slade's second feature length movie after Hard Candy is certainly impressive. Every shot captured by the cameras is a thing of beauty and manages to translate the soul of the graphic novel to the screen. I enjoyed the fact that the story gets moving almost from the first scene. You won't have to sit through half an hour of character back-story - the town's attack is already in motion by the time the opening credits have rolled.
30 Days Of Night is, without a doubt, one of the best horror movies of 2007 and I look forward to seeing Slades' next feature, whatever it be.