In 2007, a mere year before Twilight turned the popular view of cinematic vampires into glittery navel gazers who play baseball and yearn for high schoolers despite being 104, there was a frenzied attempt to turn bloodsuckers from the depressed, Anne Rice, type into something far more feral and animalistic. Adapting the insanely visceral, 2002 graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days Of Night took its mouth watering concept of vampires targeting an Alaskan town where night lasts for a month and attempted to give us a fang-tasical tail that didn’t skimp on the scares or jetting arterial spray.
And yet, years later, the horror community has somewhat slept on this full blooded comic adaptation, which is nothing short of a fucking crime as 30 Days Of Night harkens back to a time when vampires, much like the ones seen in Fright Night or The Lost Boys, would just as soon as tear your throat out than invite you to spend a day out with their family.
The people of Barrow, Alaska are girding their loins as the time of year approaches when the sun sets on their remote town and doesn’t show its face again for thirty whole days. The residents who can’t handle the perpetual night are saying goodbye to their loved ones and catching flights out of town and one of these people is Stella Oleson, who has estranged from her sheriff husband, Eben, much to the confusion of their family and friends. However, she’s left leaving one day too late after she misses her flight, but an uncomfortable reunion with her husband will soon be the least of the couples worries.
Eben arrests a stranger in town who has not only sabotaged the local transport, but has stolen and burnt dozens of mobile phones and killed any sledding dogs he can find and as that fateful night approaches, the outsider gleefully warns everyone from his cell that “they’re” coming.
“They” prove to be a commune of vampires who have hit upon the rather fiendish idea of decending upon this town that doesn’t feel the kiss of daylight for weeks and have the bloodsucker version of Burning Man where they can rampage and kill without fear of the dawn. Led by the malevolent Marlow and sporting a dental landscape that features more teeth than a Jaws marathon, this wave of screeching, pasty-faced death hits Barrow like a fanged hurricane, but after the initial attack, the survivors have to hunker down and try and wait out the seige for a whole month.
Can they outlast this orgy of bloodlust as they’re stalked by hissing creatures that aren’t stopped by the cold, bullets or anything else the last of the townsfolk can hope to through at them – after all, a month is a long time when your greatest weapon has vanished in an endless polar night.
As horror concepts go, Steve Niles’ 30 Days Of Night has a doozy that would make any self respecting horror nut facepalm themselves when they realise that they didn’t think of it first. It’s pretty much perfect and when combined with Ben Templesmith’s unforgettably unorthodox art, it was only a matter of time before a movie version came clawing at our window. So did the concept translate over well? For the most part, yes – magnificently so as director David Slade (Hard Candy) somehow managed to translate the comic’s eerie and exaggerated visual style to the screen. But while the shots of Barrow come with the bleak, stark look of the book, the real triumph is, of course, the vampires.
Skipping the idea of mere fangs, 30 Days Of Night instead presents vampires that are almost completely alien to anything we’d seen before as these vicious beings, even their boss, Marlow, not only refuse to speak a word of English, they also sport the gaping, razor tipped maws of sharks that rip out huge chunks out of the throats of their victims like they’ve been muzzled by a fucking chainsaw. Needless to say, the gore flows in rivers and Slade is obviously having full splashing red all over that nice, pristine snow and it really does the old heart good to see these vampires positively rolling in the stuff. They’re nasty bastards too as they spitefully leave terrified people to wander around as bait for any do gooders and generally play with their food. With no handy-dandy stakes around to slay these creatures either and the only way to keep these saw-mouth fuckers down is to really bring the pain and the scenes of extreme violence (especially the ones featuring a digger-mounted, ice cutting chainsaw the length of a car) are as exhilarating as they are brutal.
What also helps sell the carnage is a good crop of character actors who don’t mind getting a little O Positive under their nails and the likes of Josh Hartnett and Melissa George really get stuck in while looking like shit in the biting cold.
However, while the concept, the gore and the vampires are faithfully transported over to the screen, actually getting across the whole “month” thing proves to be a little tougher as random title cards pop up here and there at random helpfully explaining how far into the thirty days we actually are. But rather than raising tension, it ends up being rather distracting as whole chunks of the time are glossed over to slightly disorienting effect. Also, a lot of the side characters might as well wear badges that state Man #1 or Victim #5 for all the impact they make, but among these shivering non-entities, there’s characters played by Mark Boone Jr. or Nathaniel Davis to bring in some much needed empathy between the blood spurts. Also, the rather sudden plan someone has to actually combat the vampires is thought up so suddenly and is carried out in such haste, you can’t believe that a single person would go along with it as easily as they do – but in the other hand, if you have a vampire leader played by Danny Huston who is so evil, he used the blood of his victims to slick back his hair, I guess unconventional plans are needed.
Frustratingly, despite its killer idea and brutal execution, 30 Days Of Night never really got the traction I feel it deserved (probably all that slippery snow) and despite a couple of forgettable TV miniseries and a direct to DVD sequel (with all-different actors), the franchise seemed to burn up like a vamp on the sun – hell, even Slade went off and ironically made the third Twilight film which weirdly sells like a bit of a kick in the fangs.
But with ferocious gore, slick production values (the aerial shot of the initial attack is breath-taking) and a mean streak a mile wide, horror fans should eat well extraordinarily well during this particular feeding frenzy.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 