30 days of Night (2007) is one of the best vampires out there. It is very gory and presents vampires as bloodthirsty monsters that kill everyone they can get their sharp claws on. Below is my 30 Days of Night (2007) movie review
The movie deals with a group of people in Barrow, Alaska that are attacked by a pack of vampires during their annual month-long polar-night. Directed by David Slade and starring Josh Hartnett as Sheriff Eben Oleson and Melissa George as Stella Oleson. The movie has a large cast of people who are picked off one by one once the vampires are introduced.
The vampires in the movie have very sharp teeth and claws as well as dark eyes that are weirdly hollow and alien-looking. They also have a special fictional vampire language that is based on click consonants, created by a professor of linguistics at University of Auckland, New Zealand. The entire movie these vampires are shown to hunt down people in Barrow in order to prevent the outside world from knowing of their existence. While that is not their only motivation, it serves to give them a reason to kill everyone in Barrow.
Their presence is always felt even when they are not shown. When the camera is on the main characters, a roar from the vampires or a scream from one of the residents of Barrow serve to reinforce this idea that the vampires are always there and are a constant threat. The fact that you could hear gunshots doesn’t help to reinforce an idea that humans are winning in any way.
The entire film cast is great. They do solid performance portraying people who know they are minutes away from becoming the next victims of the attack. Hartnett’s character also does a great job in bringing to life a character who is struggling to keep it cool despite the fact that they are in a situation where no amount of training could prepare you for. He is also dealing with other personal matters which only complicates the situation further. Every action he takes has big consequences.
From the very beginning, the vampires throw the entire town into chaos. One scene that stood out was an overhead shot of all the people getting killed by vampires. It shows the power these creatures have (fast and merciless). Shows the vulnerability of the people (even with guns they can’t do much to stop them). It forces the group of survivors to think outside of the box and find new ways of killing the vampires.
There is a lot of bloody violence in this movie. Besides the usual bloody neck bites, we also have friends killing friends, a child getting killed, animal violence, snow plow used in a creative way, and many other fast paced quick kills. It never lets down. If there was one weak aspect of this movie, it would be the ending. It was not bad per se, just a bit cliche. Other than that, everything from acting to constant action is great. In this movie vampires are as violent as they get. They have no concept of romance in any sort of way (think “Twilight” movies).
Thanks for reading my 30 Days of Night (2007) movie review
