review for 30 Days of Night

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2007)

Picture this: when Alaska is plunged into darkness for 30 solid days straight, a gang of vampires rampages a small town. This is the premise for the movie 30 Days of Night, and a very promising one, I feel. It almost makes one wonder how it hasn't been thought of before. Vampires, according to popular lore, cannot be in the sunlight, so storming a town kept in utter darkness for a month seems a genius idea. The movie, however, based on the comic miniseries by Steve Niles, was a bit disappointing and did not live up to the great premise that it set up.
The town of Barrow, Alaska, where the movie takes place, is so far north that once a year they experience a month of complete darkness, hence, 30 Days of Night. The movie begins with showing some members of the town leaving for the month, but many still remain, including sheriff Eben, played by Josh Hartnett. His estranged wife, Stella, played by Melissa George, misses the last plane out of Barrow and is forced to remain in the dark town for the month.
The first scary character is actually not a vampire, but something almost like one. This mystery character, played by Ben Foster, is captured and kept prisoner in the town jail. He has a Southern-sounding accent that might have been humorous, if only his lines hadn't been so cryptic. But when the vampires are later introduced, this stranger seems harmless in comparison. I found the vampires to be truly terrifying. They spoke in a hissing sort of language, and were always covered in someone's blood. But despite the fact that the vampires kept me quaking in my seat during the film, afterwards, I realized that most of the scares in 30 Days of Night were cheap.
For example, the scariest parts of the movie were when a vampire jumped out of nowhere, causing audience members to jump or shriek. The movie was also incredibly gory (it is, of course, a vampire movie, and this must be taken into account), but I felt like many of the jumpy and/or gory parts were only thrown in for the shock value, or the thrill factor. To me, the thought-provoking premise wasn't entirely backed up by the cheap scares. I wanted to be scared by plot development and scary concepts, not just blood and tension that something would pop out of nowhere.
This is not to say that the movie did not scare me, however. I was fully terrified by 30 Days of Night. Horror aficionados might deem me a wimp or a sucker, and this may be true, but I believe that this movie would be scary for most people, if perhaps not for those select fanatics who can't be shocked. 30 Days of Night is a good movie for anyone prepared to be scared in a haunted house type of way, as opposed to a The Shining kind of way. But if you crave background information, plot, and character development like I do, you may want to skip this movie.