Well-made horror movie!

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2007)

I remember hearing the premise of this comic book/movie several years ago and thinking, 'Why didn't somebody think of this earlier?' It's set in Alaska just after the sun has set for 30 days - like Insomnia in reverse. But, as if that wasn't depressing enough, vampires have come to feast on the isolated town. No sun = vampire smörgåsbord! There have been some wickedly bad story pitches that actually got made into movies (bank robbery during a flood, Die Hard on a boat), so 30 Days of Night is a welcome reminder that there are still some smart twists on the genre(s) out there.
While quick cuts, loud noises, and things jumping out of dark corners are relied on too much, a tactile sense of dread is draped over the movie. The speed with which the vamps gut nearly the whole town is impressive and paints them as truly unstoppable. Before the victims can even react to their predators, they're dead. A few manage to stay in hiding through the attacks and it's those few the movie is about. They try to wait out the vampires until the sun rises again, moving from safe house to safe house, their numbers dwindling by the day. It's like a Holocaust movie where the Nazis are fanged monsters instead of just monstrous. Any bit of sound might alert them to the humans' location, so mum's the word. That being said, those people do make an awful lot of noise. And how come all the buildings look totally abandoned and dark from the outside, but when they go inside it looks like a suburban house on any other day, with lights on and all? Okay, so the director wasn't very careful about keeping the actors "in" the movie. It's a good thing there's more going on under the horrific gore (and there's quite a lot of that).
When the characters have to dispatch their foes, they do it like a person who's never killed before. Gunshots don't do much to the creatures. Their heads have to come off, at least, to put them down and keep them there. And even though the heroes must do it, they really don't want to. Sympathy goes out to the guy who had to chop the little girl's head off. It's brutal and present, much harder than just pulling a trigger. So what do they do when one of survivors gets bitten? This sort of immediacy drives the tension, just like it does in 28 Days Later. Wait, 28 Days 30 Days Hmm Recommended for the horror fan who's tired of the modern standard of torture porn and in the mood for something a little more classical. And if you want to see some gnarly beheadings.
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