Better than average vampire movie

Rating: 8/10 (9 April 2008)

Hands up all of you who like a good vampire movie! Uh huh. And when was the last time you saw one? Thought so. See, vampire movies have been severely hampered of late by having to rein the nastiness in so the movie can qualify for that all-important 15 certificate. A pretty pointless exercise, I think you'll agree. Well, fear not, for help is at hand. 30 Days of Night is set in Barrow Alaska, the northernmost town in America, where (as the title suggests) the inhabitants have to endure not only freezing cold weather but a whole month without a hint of sunshine. Unfortunately, this comes to the attention of a band of decidedly skanky looking blood-suckers, who quickly realise they won't have to put up with any of that annoying, 'back in your coffin by dawn' nonsense. And they're smarter than your average vamp. First of all they set about depriving the town of any means of communication with the outside world and then, this achieved, they set about chowing down on the inhabitants, aided and abetted by the liberal application of an 18 certificate. So as you may imagine, events get fairly visceral. The film is based on a graphic novel, but don't let that put you off. Josh Hartnett is the handsome young sheriff, charged with the task of facing up to these unwelcome visitors. He's recently separated from his young wife (and fellow law enforcer) Stella (Melissa George) and it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to predict that the ensuing struggle is likely to bring them back together. Can they and the few pitiful survivors of the initial attack survive for the next 30 days? Director David Slade (who stood in for original helmer, Sam Raimi) does a good job of keeping things moving briskly along and some of the gore effects (particularly the decapitations) are extremely realistic. More importantly, vampirism gets a bit of a makeover here, with a few angles we haven't seen before. OK, so the human characters suffer from the ever-familiar failing of taking simply ages to realise that though they are fighting the undead, the simple precedent of shredding them into the human equivalent of Kitty Kat will slow them down considerably. But that's a given in this genre and even the film's rather downbeat ending makes a refreshing break from the norm. Overally, I thought this worked and it's a shame that holding out for the 18 certificate denied it any success in movie theatres. Hopefully, its DVD release will make up for it. Those with delicate stomachs may prefer to skip this and watch The Chipmunks Movie instead. It's your loss.