30 Days of Night

D

Directed by David Slade

"Hollywood adaption" are two words that often inspire fear/agony/pain in the minds, bodies, and souls of most film lovers but Hollywood has recently been succesful (albeit in highly varying measures) in its effort to adapt graphic novels to the big screen. Indeed, from "Sin City" to "A History of Violence," Hollywood has pumped out some smashing, and rather surprising, adaptions of graphic novels in recent years. Of course, for every "Sin City" there have been a few "Elektra's" and for every adaption of "A History of Violence" there have been equal measures of "Daredevil" and "Josie and the Pussycats." So when I heard that Stephen Niles and Ben Templesmith's horror miniseries "30 Days of Night" had been turned into a big budget Hollywood production, I held out hope fo something awesome but remained open to the possibilityn that it would suck. Unfortunately for me, it was more of the latter than the former, as Slade's version is a rather convoluted and lazily acted/edited/directed version of the source material.

The film opens as the residents of tiny Barrow, Alaska prepare for the oncoming month long darkness that will envelop their small town. Most of the population takes off towards sunnier destinations while the remaining residents, including local hunky sherriff Eben (Josh Hartnett). As night falls, however, things start getting weird. The power to the town is cut, as are the phonelines, and a pack of huskies is violently killed on the outskirts of town. It isn't long before the residents of Barrow realize they may be accomodating a number of unwanted visitors over the course of the month, namely a pack of ravenous, blood thirsty VAMPIRES!!! After an initial slaughter of the villagers, a number of survivors succeed in banding together and taking refuge in an abandoned attic, faced with the prospect of fending off the murderous advances of the vampires for an entire month before the sun returns.

"30 Days of Night" is a slick and glossy Hollywood production that, frankly, looks great. People like myself whine and moan about American films but one thing I must often admit is that no matter how crappy the film, most Hollywood productions, due mainly to their oftentimes ridiculously bloated budgest, serve as shameless eye candy. Beyond the sleek looks of the film, however, "30 Days of Night" doesn't have that much else going for it. Indeed, as a reinvigoration of the vampire genre, the film is woefully lacking, as it attempts to pump some blood (har, har) into the genre by featuring vampires who run really fast and are seemingly more intelligent than their more glassy eyed, intellectually vacant predecessors. Ultimately, however, the vampires in "30 Days of Night" appear neither scary nor that dangerous, as they are often defeated with a single blow from a blunt object.
The film's major downfall, however, is not its rather uninspiring villains or even its refusal to develop any significant human intrigue between the town's survivors but rather its absolutely remarkable laziness in ironing out any narrative inconsistencies or plot holes. Indeed, the film is marred by several glaring lapses in realism that are too numerous and egregious to simply toss into the "no story is perfect" pile. Several times during the course of the film, for instance, a character, usually Josh Harnett's, will inform the survivors that they must move to another building for some reason, oftentimes poorly explained in the film. The character then proceeds to make his way from Building A to Building B solo at which point he is pursued relentlessly by the vampires and only barely makes it to Building B safely, only to find that the rag tag band of survivors is already there waiting for him, having obviously done the trek with far less strain or inconvenience than he did. This is only one of the many head scratching moments in a film filled with them.
"30 Days of Night" wasn't completely unpleasant like some other recent entries in the American Horror genre have been (i.e. the "Hostel" and Saw" series) but it was pretty boring, a sin that is onforgiveable for a film that is meant to be enjoyed with as little intellectual engagement as possible.