Review: 30 Days of Night (2007)

30 Days of Night was the one film I was anticipating the most this year; it's based off one of the most beautiful graphic novels ever created, the basic plot sends chills down your spine, and its directed by David Slade who did Hard Candy back in 2005. This film had all the makings for a box-office smash, and a semi-critical success. It only exceeded in the former. When I saw 30 Days of Night, I was both disappointed and relieved; but more disappointed.



The movie is set in an Alaskan town that suffers through a whole month without daylight. A bunch of roaming vampires scheme to invade the town, and literally suck it dry. One of the only villagers apt enough to take on the vampires is Eben (Josh Hartnett) the local sheriff, along with his of-again-off-again wife, Stella (Melissa George). Hartnett gives a really good performance, though it may have seemed better since it was contrasted by all the other supporting character's dull performances, including George's. The supporting actors have about three faces; scared, sad, and dead. This was on part due to Slade who never emphasizes the supporting cast, only Hartnett and George. I think anyone who saw the movie can admit there was one true extraordinary performance--- Ben Foster as the mysterious "stranger". Though his character is minimalized after the first half of the movie and then just disappears (I still don't know why he wanders into the town in the first place), his character is intensely creepy, and very quirky. He oozes impending doom, and really adds a unique touch to the film.



Sadly, when he warns Hartnett from inside his cell is the only dramatic tension the movie has--- AT ALL. The one scene that could have lived on in American culture, that could have defined the film and scared the crap out of everybody in a mile radius of the theater, is ruined. This scene was the first invasion of the vampires ransacking the town. But, there is no build up. There is no conditioning of the audience for the attack. This does not make it scarier or edgier when they do attack; it only makes it flat and hard to follow. The first scenes set up an eerie chill, but do not create true tension. I think Slade thought it would make it scarier if the vampire's just invaded the town without warning, and it might of been possible, but he kept us wondering whether they had invaded or not. When the first few people are killed in their homes, we have no sense of the gravity of the situation, we aren't even sure that they are invading the main setting; it could have been some other random town in Alaska. The lack of characterization makes us not care who is killed or who lived, and new characters keep being introduced who the audience has never seen. Slade also gives us no sense of where the action is taking place; he never sets up the town before hand so the audience can understand where the character's are fleeing to; we are left in the dark. Even the final scenes are left anticlimactic due to no tension. This film almost seems like an inside joke between friends, something that the outside world can't get in far enough to see. Besides that, the film looks gorgeous, and the vampires are scary as hell with their weird, picaresque euro-costumes.

With that I some up the main flaw with 30 Days of Night--- Slade did not take his cue from Alfred Hitchcock when the master director said, "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."