idiotic

Rating: 2/10 (23 June 2008)

I'd never read the comics this film was based on, but it struck me as a somewhat intriguing idea... a group of vampires (i.e., monsters who can only hunt at night) discover perfect prey in a Alaskan town that endures a full month of night every year.
Sounds like a kinda clever premise for a horror movie, right? Well, it might have been, if 30 Days of Night had anything more than an remotely interesting premise to go on. The acting, script, set pieces, costumes, and special effects were all laughably bad. I should note that I'm a big fan of some really bad horror movies... but for a bad horror movie to be enjoyable, it has to avoid the cardinal sin of being boring. Not only was 30 Days laughably bad in just about all critical respects in which a movie can be bad, it was also painfully dull to watch. The characters were so poorly drawn there was no reason to care what happened to any of them, not the humans, not the vampires. It's hard to say who were more vapid or annoying, the humans or the vampires.
The humans suffered from stilted and silly dialog and bad acting, the vampires suffered from lousy makeup jobs (one of them looked like Trent Reznor in drag) and a ridiculous "language" (it sounded like they were speaking Klingon). Also, the plot never developed at all beyond "there are baddies coming to get us"... no explanation as to where the vampires came from. Which might have been alright, if there had been any successful development of suspense or fear; but there was not. Just some pretty gory deaths, which in this day and age of ultra-violent horror movies, is just not enough to base a movie around by itself.
There were some funny bits, like the vampires Klingonesque dialect and silly appearance, and some rather enormous plot holes (planes can't fly in the dark, eh?). But unless you're just looking for something to play "Mystery Science Theater" with, stay away from this steaming piece of junk.