Frostbitten fang fun, with horrific moments that glisten...

Rating: 6/10 (29 November 2007)

...though not overly memorable, were it not for the amusing premise. Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost community of the United States, has entered an extended period of polar night in which the sun fails to "crack dawn" for a good long time (the film posits a titular thirty days, but in truth it lasts more than two months). In the movies, we all know what comes out at night to play: bad things. In this case, vampires, and there's none of that decadent, dandified, pseudo-romantic Ann Rice crap. Director David "Hard Candy" Slade and writers Stuart "Derailed" Beattie, Brian "Hard Candy" Nelson, and Steve "I created the original comic book" Niles treat their audience to bloodsuckers who possess nary a trace of a redeeming characteristic. They sport formidable dentures and an aggressive attitude to match, not to mention some pretty sloppy table manners. In fact, it's the vampires that make "30 Days of Night" a sanguine guilty pleasure to watch, since most all their victims are either relatively faceless fodder or, regrettably, characters that we're never really led to care all that much about.
Still, the acting is tolerable, with special kudos to Danny "Children of Men" Huston as one of the more impressive and disturbing villains I've seen in a while, and Ben "Hostage" Foster as his doomed harbinger. Josh "Sin City" Hartnett, local cop, leads what few humans survive the initial vampiric onslaught, including estranged wife (Melissa "Derailed" George), kid brother (Mark "Arthur" Rendall), local salt-of-the-earther (Mark "Batman Begins" Boone Junior), and NZ/Aussie star Manu "The Condemned" Bennett as Hartnett's benighted sidekick. Production values are high, with art direction, production design, and cinematography appropriately dark and menacing; all in all, it's a nice, creepy, claustrophobic visual realization, much along the lines of John Carpenter's "The Thing." The plot is a straightforward "circled wagons" yarn, laced with some nicely stark dialog that only rarely makes you cringe. The visuals and make-up fx are excellent, with plenty of blood and mayhem to satisfy even jaded gorehounds. Some of the intro storytelling seems perfunctory, or perhaps overly edited to save time, but once the vampires strike in force, "30 Days..." goes for the throat with carnivorous gusto. If nothing else, it's a definite thumbs-up for feral vampire fans (not to mention fans of feral vampires).
I see that a sequel is in the works, but I won't expect it to be anything to write home about. "30 Days of Night" sports a few too many "oh, c'mons" to pass muster as a classic, but it wraps itself up tidily enough to claw its way above the lower ranks of fang films. A sequel will most likely tarnish whatever bloodstained, frostbitten notoriety "30 Days of Night" has achieved. It was a worthy 2d-run night out, and possibly will merit time on the DVD player this winter, but for sheer fright-film entertainment, I preferred "The Mist," to be honest.