30 Days of Night Review
Written by: grubi666
From the first scenes of a huge boat lurking in the fog and snow-covered hills, I knew this was going to be a visually interesting movie. But looks alone can't make a movie a good one, so I was really hoping that the plot, the acting and the effects would match the look, and boy was I not dissapointed. You must all pretty much know the story, about vampires attacking a small town in Alaska where it is dark for 30 consecutive days. The vampires are really scary, the make-up effects and the way they move make them very spooky.
For the first part of the film, you don't really see them, as they move really fast and are only shadows in the snow, but later on we see them in all their bloody glory. This is one thing that bugged me a bit about the movie, the action scenes are cut really quick, with camera changes succeding each other at a very frantic pace. Sometimes I would have liked to slow down the speed to have a better look at what was happening (I'll be looking forward to using the slow-motion button on my dvd player when this comes out). But I guess it was meant to be that way, fast and confusing, to illustrate how the townspeople are attacked hard and fast by something they can't really identify.
They really don't know what hit them 'til most of them are dead! The acting was ok, and I liked the story. A few questions stay unanswered, (like where do the vampires come from?) but that's ok, they can explain that in the sequels (ha ha!). And vampires and snow make a very good mix as blood shows well on a white background, as we can see in a nice aerial view of the ravaged town! For the gore fans, you will be served. I myself like a bit of gore, but some scenes had me squirming in my seat and almost (!) looking away! And the percussive-heavy soundtrack added a nice dimension to the action scenes. I really really enjoyed this film and higly recommend it. Too bad it seems to be slow at the box office, but I'm sure it will be a hit on DVD, and even become a cult favorite.