Finally vampires with bite! but with little else

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2009)

30 Days of Night serves as a pivotal rebirth of the vampire-movie franchise with the premise of archaic, zombie-like, piranha toothed vampires that resurface fear in a genre that hasn't scared since Nosferatu. Despite this though, poor exposition and plot progression had minimized what could have been a fully revitalized fear of vampires.
While the film certainly does an excellent job of setting the scene in the otherwise small and isolated town of Barrow, Alaska, locked away in 30 days of night, your more or less presented with a quick blitzkrieg of violence that numbs any perfectly planned tension and suspense that could have otherwise been capitalized.
And yes, there is quite the amount of, at times disturbing, violence. This is reflected in the fact that these vampires, while committing horrible atrocities themselves, aren't taken down with splinters of wood and crucifixes, but with extreme force (i.e axes, shot-guns and even earth-moving vehicles).
Acting is well done for the most part, especially in the case of Ben Foster's take on a mentally-ill vagrant. Otherwise, Josh Hartnett did an otherwise sufficient role as sheriff, but ultimately didn't serve as a very compelling character.
In the end the film implemented the right elements but rushed them on the audience without good use of tension, leading you to be more rattled then actually scared. Perhaps as well, this story was better used as a mini series given the original comic-book it was based on. Somehow covering 30 days over a near-two hour film just didn't pace well.