Time flies

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2010)

I haven't read the comic, and I'm not sure I knew it existed at all until I heard about this film. While by no means a classic, it is good, exciting fun, and the conclusion is fairly cool. The vampires(who have their own unique language) are creepy, eerie, cheesy and hammy. This is a proper R-rated horror flick, something we have *not* seen anywhere near enough of recently. It's pretty reminiscent of the recent Dawn of the Dead remake(2004) in tone and enjoyability factor, and one could compare this to John Carpenter's The Thing for the snowy, isolated aspect. The pace is fairly fast, and this has tension, and a little suspense. Editing and cinematography are well-done, with some use of hand-held camera. The dialog can be funny. There are jump-scares, and this is genuinely entertaining, engaging and effective, and delivers what it promises. The acting varies a tad, and other than Huston, this does suffer somewhat under there being no powerhouse performances. I like Melissa George(who, as Alias showed us, can put on a convincing American accent), and I don't have a problem with Hartnett, however, neither of them manage to carry this all that well. The FX are marvelous. This doesn't have a lot of backstory, and the plot may not hold up to close scrutiny, but if you just want popcorn cinema, this will do nicely. There is a ton of bloody, gory violence and a bit of strong language in this. The DVD comes with 72(not 79, as the cover claims) minutes worth of well-done, interesting and informational featurettes and quite a few trailers. I recommend this to anyone else who likes this particular guilty pleasure of a sub-genre. 7/10