Maybe my expectations were just a little too high

Rating: 5/10 (20 October 2007)

30 Days of Night was one of the horror films I was looking forward to most this year. I mean from the moment I saw the trailer early spring, I was looking up on IMDb when the release date was, it was agony knowing that I had to wait until October. Finally, last night, opening night, it was storming in my city, so it was like the most perfect time to go see this movie. So my friend and I saw this last night and the theater was packed, when the movie ended, there was only one person who started to clap, but then stopped immediately when he saw that there was no one else clapping. While my friend liked this movie, I wasn't too thrilled. It didn't seem like a real vampire film, more like Night of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later, where this group is just hiding from the vampires. Not to mention that things were just not well explained, but maybe I need to read the book to get it, because this movie failed to explain certain situations.
Eben is the sheriff of the northern most town in the U.S., also it is night for 30 days, the roads shut down and some of the population leaves and some stays. Things go extremely bad though when a gang of vampires decides that this is the perfect town to move to. They pretty much get most of the townspeople, except for Eben, his ex-wife, Stella, his little brother, Jake, and a couple more of their friends. Since the vamps have cut the power and had someone burn all the cell phones, it's impossible for the gang to escape, but they are going to try to make it for the month. But that's going to be tough when the vamps spoiled their dinner the first day and now need more happy meals on foot.
The plot was incredibly good and original, I was so thrilled that this seemed to be like a real vampire movie. But unfortunately there were things that were just not well explained. Now like how the vampires seemed to want to be known in this world, but then later on they try to "hide" what they did by burning the town, it didn't make much sense. Then how did The Stranger fit into this whole mess? Was he a potential vampire? Was he promised to live if he did these things for the vamps or promised to be turned into a vampire? Then also why did Josh Hartnett become a vampire? I know it was to gain super strength, but still, it seemed kinda silly for him to jump so quickly. Not to mention the love story between him and Stella didn't have good enough chemistry to pay attention too. I feel bad bashing this film because I so badly wanted to like it, but it just didn't pull through for me.
5/10