Ferocious, nerve wracking vampire classic

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2015)

30 Days Of Night pulls no punches, let's get that clear right off that bat. This ain't no ponderous, moody vampire flick, it's a visceral, gut ripping fever dream of cold dread. The vampires are ferocious, almost alien like demons, and you don't even see them coming, until your jugular is raining down onto the snow. Once a year, a small Alaskan ttown is plunged into wintery darkness for an entire month. This time around, a pack of bloodthirsty vampires has arrived on a decimated freighter ship, to set up camp and terrorize every soul in the town. Sheriff Eben Olsen (Josh Hartnett) findsnthe wreckage and arrests a mysterious stranger, played by Ben Foster. Foster adopts a greasy persona and an indecipherable eastern European accept, and is at times creepier than the vamps. When night descends, the vamps invade, in some nerve shattering sequences of horror. They don't discriminate either... Kids, dogs and anyone they find is immediate prey. Olsen and his family, including ex wife Melissa George, must hunker down, evade and survive the monsters until the sun shows its face again in a months time. Danny Huston plays Marlow, the leader of the pack, with godlike malice, and Mark Boone Jr. shows up as an intrepid townsman. It's a pulse pounding flick to sit through, even for horror buffs, but works very well due to its murky, desolate atmosphere and absolutely ruthless scenes of terror.