30 Days Of Night
Director: David Slade
Rated: MA 15+
From Thurs 8 Nov


The initial premise of this big screen adaptation of the miniseries comic book of the same name is both ingenious and, quite frankly, rather dumb. But it's a vampire film so I'll not get too philosophically precious. There's an actual town 515km north of the Artic Circle named Barrow, and its here - depicted with a number of questionable census facts - that the action takes place. According to the original storyline devised by Steve Niles and graphically drawn out by Australian illustrator Ben Templesmith, it was during an evening at home watching television that head ghoul Marlow (frightfully played out by Danny Huston), stumbled across a documentary on the town and excitably had a ring around to all his hemo-hungry buddies to organize a bit of a get together. A kind of vampire convention in the isolated, sunless 'resort' town of Barrow, if you will.

From here it's all free feasting and a whole lot of fang filled fun...

Except they didn't bank on local sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George), to be there to spoil the party. Given all that, and that this is based on a comic book you'd think this would indeed be comical. Quite the contrary, as all involved, actors and filmmakers alike, go all out to ensure that movie goers find nothing funny about mates and family members having their throats ripped open and heads torn off. The bloodshed is laid on thick and fast and after the preliminary onslaught we're reminded there's another twenty-nine blacked out days to endure. Here is the film's immediate flaw: how to depict such an arduous timeline within less than two hours without losing too many mortal characters for either fodder or to keep some hope alive for a positive ending? There are obvious leaps of logic throughout, which are immediately countered by more gore (hooray!), then all is forgiven and we the audience are back to where we're supposed to be, scared shitless.

While it may not be funny, '30 Days Of Night' is a whole lot of fun as much of the original comic strip feel is kept, faithfully maintaining Templesmith's eerie de-saturated landscape, and with Niles heading the screenwriter's list the extra dialogue required for this cinematic makeover is also justified.

Steve Jones