The most visceral vampire movie I ever saw.

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2017)

Barrow, Alaska. The most northern town in America, where for 30 days every year it is has no sunlight.
This is the perfect opportunity for a gang of merciless, & blood- thirsty vampires to feed on the remaining inhabitants of this small town, after most leave for the month of darkness.
As people are leaving, and others are making preparations for their time of hibernation, mysterious occurrences are uncovered; mobile phones stolen, and destroyed, an entire team of sled dogs butchered. The ground work for the impending doom of a malevolent force.
Once the killings and feedings begin there is no let up. I have watched my share of vampire films, and frankly this is definitely one of the best made, its stripped back, bare, and unromanticized. This group of vampires, led by the visceral Marlow (Houston) take no pity on the town of Barrow as they tear it apart looking for their prey, and using people as bait to lure hiding survivors out into the cold and snowed out streets of the isolated mining town.
The second half of the film becomes a tale of survival, as town Sheriff Eben Olemun (Hartnett) and his soon to be ex-wife Stella (George), lead a group of survivors who manage to hide themselves away by staying in an attic, scared and cold they realize that it is only a matter of time before they are discovered and killed.
Even though this is a film that does involve a fair amount of blood and gore, the film's real heart lies in the way it scares you with what it doesn't show in the lead up to the early killings, this for me is true horror, show me next to nothing, and build the most amount of tension, then deliver the shock, and you'll have me pissing my pants every time. There is also a fair amount of brutality shown, not only in how the vampires kill their prey, but also how they are dispensed by Eben and the others.
On an interesting note, this is a film based on a graphic novel written by Steve Niles, who co-wrote the screenplay to the film. Niles had actually pitched the original idea as a film some years before, but reworked it to graphic novel after being knocked back by several producers, it was then picked up afterwards by one of those producers to make this film we have now.