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30 Days of Night
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retrospect.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

considering one story arc takes place in space i sure hope not.
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Wataru

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Ugh, the movie was TERRIBLE! The vampires looked cool enough, but the screeching was really irritating and what language were they speaking? Apparently its the language where "tkk-chkk" is the only word and it means everything. Also, the vampires went berserk and killed everyone in town the first night except for a handfull. Then they hang around on the off-chance they may have missed someone.

Brilliant premise, but I just didn;t care for the outcome. Is the source material better?
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Tullaryx

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Kikito wrote:
I saw the movie last night and I think it was exactly what I expected. A very entertaining vampire film. I like how they spin the usual vampire story with the Alaskan setting. I can imagine it being scary enough having 30 straight days of night, and throwing in vampires into the mix just made a perfect(if not, at least a very good and effective one) combination of setting and theme.

Just today I read about how there's other books for the 30 Days of Night franchise. I wonder if they'll bother with translating any of those to film if this one proves successful enough.

My only qualm with the movie is the lack of information on the Vampires, but I suppose that helped keep them being very evil and mysterious to the spectator.


I pretty much have the same take on the film as Kikito. I'll re-post the review I put up in Tinto here in quotes later on. As for the the rest of the franchise's story arcs getting a film treatment I will say yes. The movie didn't take much to make and the 16 million USD it pulled in over the weekend in North America pretty means guarantees a sequel. Another thing why I say yes is that Sam Raimi and Ghost House Pictures who produced the movie have already announced a sequel will be made.

If they follow things in chronological order then the next film's title will be Dark Days and will deal with the aftermath of the Barrow, Alaska attack. The sequel graphic novel actually deals more with the background on the vampires and they're hidden community.
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Tony Stark

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I thought the movie was okay, but certainly not great. The movie tries to strike you with how violent it was and how creepy the vampires were (though do not make the mistake in thinking that this movie is really scary, because it isn't) and at the same time keep your interest and hope in the human inhabiting the city. But where the movie fails is that the vampires keep you interested so much, the humans hold no interest for you at all.

You can tell Hartnett tries to carry the interest in the humans, and in a limited sense succeeds, as you do care for the fate of Hartnett, but he simply is not enough to keep you interested. Too much of the movie is boring dialog that fails to keep people interested.

Where the movie succeeds though is with the vampires. They are creepy as all, and Danny Houston who plays the lead vampire does an excellent job in getting your eyes right to the screen every time the vampires appear. It also takes a unique approach to vampires that has not been seen in the past few years of vampire movies. Instead of the sexual, eccentric Anne Rice vampires or the intelligent Underworld vampires, they are these animal creatures who act a whole damn lot more like zombies or werewolves than vampires.

Overall, I'd say the movie is worth seeing if you want to be entertained and it doesn't cost you much.
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Tullaryx

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Well, as promised here's my review of the film that was originally posted in Tinto.

Tullaryx wrote:
30 Days of Night - David Slade (review)

It was in the summer of 2004 when I first came across a graphic novel with a peculiar sounding title and a very stylized art for a cover. I picked up the book written by one Steve Niles. His was a name I recognized from having read his collaborative writing with Clive Barker on the Night of the Living Dead: London comic book. The book in my hands was titled 30 Days of Night and on a whim I bought the graphic novel. I haven't regretted that purchase. I read through it in one sitting and I was hooked by the premise Niles introduces in the story and which brings some new life into the vampire genre.

The year is now 2007 and the horror graphic novel that was originally written by Niles to be a screenplay for a vampire movie has finally made it to the silver screen. Sam Raimi optioned the rights to produce the film and tapped David Slade to direct the film adaptation of 30 Days of Night. Slade was just fresh off of his impressive directorial debut with Hard Candy and I was curious as to how he would bring the tension he managed so well in that film over to this vampire story. Using the adapted screenplay by Hard Candy collaborator Brian Nelson, Slade's film does a very truthful adaptation of the graphic novel with some minor changes to characters and expanding on the original source material.

30 Days of Night is pretty much a siege movie with heavy elements of horror and gore. Siege movies always succeed and fail depending on whether the tension and dread built up from the beginning of the film suspends the audience's disbelief. Siege films like The Thing and Romero's Living Dead trilogy works well because right from the get-go we see the tension build not just on the location the cast are put in but within the besieged survivors as well. Survival becomes that much more difficult due to human frailties and an inability to work together bringing the whole group down. The monsters outside are bad enough, but sometimes it's the survivors themselves who must share the blame.

Slade's movie does a very good job of bringing the initial tension and dread the comic brought to life in its first chapter. The story takes place in Barrow, Alaska which happens to be located within the Arctic Circle as to allow it a very peculiar yearly event of having pitch-black night which lasts for a period of an entire month. The movie begins just as the town of Barrow prepares for this month-long prolonged night. Most of the town decide to move down south for the month where the night doesn't last as long, but enough stay in Barrow to give it a semblance of life and activity. We're first introduced to the main characters of the story of Eben and Stella Oleson (the first change and a major one from book to celluloid. The Eben was Olemaun and an Eskimo instead of the Nordic sounding Oleson) as husband and wife sheriff and Alaskan fire marshal (Stella was Eben's deputy in the graphic novel) of Barrow. Already, we see some tension building with these two characters. There's a sense of bad history between the two which the coming danger will either reinforce to keep them even more apart of bring them together. It's their response to complaints about a stranger in town which heralds the first clues of Barrows incoming visitors. Known only as The Stranger in the credits, Ben Foster's Renfield-like character edges between caricature and genuine creepiness in his performance. Foster knows he's in a genre movie and has fun with the character.

The build-up of the characters in 30 Days of Night marks one of the weaknesses in the film. There's barely much characterization in distinguishing one Barrow, Alaskan from another. Except for the Oleson's everyone seem to be cut-outs of stereotypes of siege films of past. Not that this is a bad thing since its the attack of the vampires on the town which is really what audience who go to see this kind of movie wil want to see. But the lack in character development from all the characters whether human or vampire doesn't invest the film with anyone we want to see make it out through the night and into dawn. Even Danny Huston, a very underrated and overly capable actor in past films, fails to elevate his lead vampire character Marlowe beyond it's genre trappings.

Now while the character build-up was quite lacking in the film the overall tension and horror which just builds and builds makes a vampire movie which truly scares. Vampire movies have never been the kind of horror pictures which actually has genuine scary and horrific moments. Only a few vampires films in the past has been able to pull this off. The original Nosferatu by great silent-film director F.W. Murnau did it to great effect and of the past 25 years Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark made vampires not just seductive but terrifying as well. I am happy to say that David Slade got part of what made the graphic novel so well-received. He did a good job in maing the vampires scary and bestial without turning them into a pack of wild animals. The moment Marlowe and his brood of fellow bloodsuckers arrive in Barrow everyone pretty much have been put right on the edge of their seat anticipating the carnage about to be released. The carnage come brutal, fast and horrific. While some of Slade's past work as a music video director sometimes pop in some scenes when the quick-cut editing rears it's ugly head the rest of the attack and action scenes were easy to follow, if at times difficult to watch for those with a weak constitution for extreme bloodletting and flesh violation.

I now get to the subject of the vampires themselves. Most vampire movies seem enamored in portraying the vampire as some sort of seductive, fashion-obsessed, or in the case of the Anne Rice-type anachronistic in their dress, with an unnatural immortality they either live as hedonistically as possible or bemoan their cursed existence. There's never been a true portrayal of the vampire as a pure, hunger-driven monster with an appetite to match their status as one of folklore and legend's top-tier boogeymen. As i stated earlier the vampires in 30 Days of Night have such a bestial look to them but without looking too feral thus losing some of the human features which gives them a leg up over their opposites in werewolves. Slade goes for speed and agility in his vampires instead of hypnotizing and mesmerizing their victims. The vampires in this movie owes much to the frenetic and over-amped infecteds of 28 Days Later.

The attack itself and the subsequent siege worked well enough in the early going. There were some great overhead shots of the town's people losing it's fight during the initial feeding frenzy as the camera shoots the scene high overhead. The only thing Slade had a misstep in terms of the siege itself was after those first couple of nights. The rest of the 30 days didn't seem to show enough desperation on the faces and bodies of the last few survivors. Really, the only way the audience even knew a couple weeks have passed were the caption telling them how many days into the month-long night has passed. I think with some better editing and a better sense of structure in the middle section of the movie to show time actually progressing the movie would've been many levels better.

All in all, 30 Days of Night was just good enough that I had a fun time watching it. The premise itself was original and put a new spin on the vampire genre that has rarely been tapped. The performances were pretty average with no one bringing the whole film down with a misstep performance or raising the bar with a great one. The final product had a chance to be something great, but just ends up being a good and original take on the vampire story with elements of Night of the Living Dead. In any other time of the year I would probably not have enjoyed this movie as much as I did on the season of Halloween. With the film having introduced some of the characters and themes of the franchise there's hope that the sequel will now delve into the why of the vampires and their reasoning to attack Barrow. One could only hope. 6.5/10


I would say that compared to most vampire movies 30 Days of Night had a bit more scary moments. Vampire movies really don't come across as being truly scary. I think vampire movies have a tendency to be more terrifying than horrifying.
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