Fails to meet potential

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2007)

The film 30 days of night is built around a sound and intriguing concept, yet it fails to live up to the potential that the basic idea creates.
Josh Hartnett plays Eben Olsen a sheriff in the small Alaskan town of Barrow. Due to the co-ordinates of the town it falls into a spell every winter where the sun sets for 30 days and does not rise (hence the title). This makes for a very interesting premise, 30 days of night, vampires, bloodshed, should be good right? But from here on in the movie is mediocre at best. The film begins on the final day of light for the small town of Barrow with the towns folk going about preparation for the 30 days of darkness. The stranger (Ben Foster) arrives soon after on a ship off the outskirts of the small town and begins his trek into Barrow through knee deep snow. At this same time strange things begin happening around the town which put the sheriff on edge. The stranger then arrives and gets into a scuffle with Hartnett at a bar which consequently lands him in jail, where he threatens the station employees and sheriff with the unknown danger that is coming to their town. Power outages mixed amongst other things follow these warnings but he is not yet taken seriously. Up to this point the movie is still interesting and the suspense while still awaiting the first attack is sufficient to keep you interested, but shortly after when the first attack happens, the movie takes a turn for the worse.
The first attack is laughably bad. Hartnett discovers their victim and tells the townspeople to get to their homes and stay there until he tells them otherwise. The vampires arrive shortly after and all hell breaks loose. The movie shifts focus to a group of 7 or 8 people (including Hartnett) who hide out together and stays with them throughout the remainder. Despite this very little character development is made, a horror movie rarely has much character development i know, but there is ample time to do so. I found myself not caring who lived or died and at times not giving the movie my undivided attention.
I will end my review here as not to spoil the movie for those of you who are going to see it but my advice is this, the movie is mediocre so if you are interested in seeing it wait until it comes out on DVD.