Good Except for the Ending

Rating: 7/10 (9 March 2008)

I thought this was a pretty unique take on the vampire story. I liked the feeling of hopelessness that you felt as you watched Barrow Alaska cut off from the world for 30 days. Just that alone is enough to make someone feel uncomfortable. Add in these brutal monsters and you've got a great setting for a horror film.
Josh Hartnett did pretty well as the sheriff and the rest of the acting was good. The special effects (blizzards, snow, etc) were all pretty good as well.
The story is basically, that this town of Barrow Alaska which gets cut off for a month every year as it gets no sun at this time. On the last day before the darkness, the sheriff investigates a bunch of strange incidents, such as someone stole several cell and satellite phones and burned them. He then picks up a stranger who was accosting the waitress in the diner. He cryptically warns them of "them" and it isn't long after that the power goes out and then the attacks begin. They start slowly at first, at people on the outskirts of town. Then, these creatures just unleash hell.
Then, a small group of survivors must find a way to stay alive as they piece together who these brutal people are that are eating their neighbors. They must move around to different safe areas while avoiding the vampires.
There were a few problems with the plot that I found. The first was during the first night of the attacks, Josh Hartnett is moving around town with little trouble. This after a scene of the vampires chasing down people in the streets. How's he moving around, in a truck, without being attacked? Then there are the people hiding in the diner. In that same scene of the vampires attacking the people, you see them breaking into houses and stores...so why weren't they breaking into the diner which seemed to be near the center of the town.
The head vampire periodically gives random speeches to his brethren in some sort of language and some of what he said just was like it was taken straight out of Nietzsche, "that which can be broken should be broken" and so forth.
(major spoiler here) When Josh Hartnett injects himself with the vampire blood, he says "I can smell your blood." Wouldn't the vampires be able to sense or smell these survivors even if they were hiding in an attic or a general store? Speaking of the ending, I didn't really like it. Yes I know, it was a throwback to his earlier speech about "doing anything for family member" but I just felt him becoming a vampire to fight the head vampire was a little too much. I also thought that the vampires would have simply all attacked him at once. I thought it would have been better had he followed the vampires back to their ship or wherever they were hiding and either joined them or destroyed them. Ah, but why not leave it open to endless sequels like every other horror film! Overall, it was a good film. There were a few moments early on that made me jump. It would have been nice to explain the backstory a little bit. Was the stranger a member of the crew on that cargo ship and how did that cargo ship get there. It was obviously frozen in place so they were there for a while. Also, the vampires wore pretty modern clothes and they looked like they came from different parts of the world. Maybe in the sequel, they'll explain that...and you know they will make a sequel...they always make sequels.