These vamps don't twinkle

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2014)

Ah, vampires, those pillars of the community who go to your local highschool and have pretty gold eyes because they only hunt animals. Oh, and they twinkle too in sunlight. I'm very pleased to say that 30 Days of Night isn't anything like that.
These vampires have fangs that would make mincemeat of Kristen Stewart's neck and have a nasty habit of slaughtering every man, woman and child they meet. And they meet Josh 'the beard' Hartnett in his Alaskan town which is so northerly that the sun doesn't rise for thirty days (hence the title, right?).
What follows is a story of survival, where the handful of remaining townsfolk (led by Hartnett's beard) have to last the thirty days before the eventual sunrise which will kill their undead foe (of which the head vampire bears more than a passing resemblance to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys... but with bigger teeth and a thirst for blood, rather than poppy dance anthems).
And it's good (if you don't look too closely). It has impressive action set pieces, characters you care about, plenty of gore to keep us 'claret-lovers' entertained and vampires who you don't want to slap for being so wet and 'Emo.' It could all be a classic, if it wasn't for the fact - and you might want to skip this bit, just in case you don't notice - that the whole 'thirty days aspect' seems to be well and truly glossed over. In fact, it could all happen in one night and you'd be none the wise.
But that is a slight niggle and, if you like your vampires old fashioned and nasty (as opposed to falling in love with teenage waifs who are incapable of cracking a smile) then you should like this (although, whatever you do, don't watch the sequel - it's a terrible attempt at cashing in on the success of this one).