We all know that vampires can be killed by sunlight. So where would be a great place to set a vampire movie? In a place where there was no sunlight for thirty days of course! This was probably the initial idea behind the story of 30 Days of Night which was originally a comic book written by Steve Niles.
Based on a comic book, the movie stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George as the Alaskan Sheriffs who are trapped in a small town being overrun by vampires. The cold and the dark provide a great setting and gave me vibes of The Thing. Especially as the good guys start to get picked off one by one. There’s something about a frozen hell that really works for horror as it adds tremendously to the sense of isolation.
The vampires in this movie are also great. Visually they are scary and don’t have much humanity left. They are also very overpowered compared to the surviving humans which make it seem as if they have little chance to survive.
The plot takes little time to get things going and all the humans know they are against the odds to come up with a plan or last things out. I like movies where you see characters have to strategise and you almost start to put your mind to solving the issues with them. Watching the film you know most of the characters are just cannon fodder waiting to be killed by the vampires but the do a good job of giving individuals enough of those Poseidon Adventure personalities so there are some you want to root for and others you hope will get got.
The story puts some nice twists on the vampire formula to make it unique. This includes the vampires having a mouth full of pointy teeth rather than just two, that they speak their own language and it’s just UV light that will kill them and not specifically having to be daylight.
The movie is a thrilling adventure of cat and mouse, and for the longest time you just watch as the mice try to hide and survive encounters with the vampiric cats. After a while though you start to see how the mice can turn the tables on the cats and the hunters become the hunted.
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