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film: 30 Days of Night
director: David Slade
cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George
Columbia Pictures / 2007
score: 75
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by Kaare Kvenild
"30 Days of Night" is the scariest vampire film I've
seen in a long time. Based on the graphic novel by
Steve Niles, "30 Days of Night" takes place in Barrow,
Alaska, which is supposedly the northern most town in
the United States. Each winter, the sun sets for 30
days of continuous night. The people there are used
to the dark, the cold and the isolation. Except this
year, a mysterious stranger comes to town and
announces, "that cold ain't the weather, that's death
approaching." And death does indeed approach,
for not long after, a gang of vampires rolls into
Barrow to enjoy a month long trip to the buffet line.
The cast is very believable. Josh Hartnett plays the
town sheriff; he's almost like Andy Griffith in that
the town is so small he knows everybody and they know
him. He cares for each and every person in Barrow,
and whenever one dies he's torn apart inside. He's
also willing to do anything to save one, which the
viewers will see in the film (I refuse to say anything
more). Ben Foster is the mysterious stranger who
comes to Barrow prophesizing the town's doom.
Forster, like his role in "3:10 to Yuma," is dark,
mysterious and scary. The stranger is the Renfield of
the film, the human slave of the vampire with
aspirations of becoming one of them. But the scariest
of all is Danny Huston as Marlow, the lead vampire; he
is terrifying. Marlow, along with the other vampires,
speaks entirely in a foreign tongue, which makes him
that much scarier. This is two years in a row that
Huston has played roles that have truly scared me; in
2006 he played Arthur Burns in "The Proposition."
Niles's graphic novel is a groundbreaking piece of
literature, and director David Slade captures that
with every shot in this film. Slade captures every
aspect of Niles's novel; the dark moodiness, the idea
that something is around every corner, and the
isolation of being cut off from the world. I will not
forget one shot, I don't remember the specifics of
what was going on, but it was a shot of Hartnett
outside during a snowfall. You can see each
individual snowflake falling; I have never seen shot
like that. Slade really makes his mark with this
movie. I sat in the theater feeling like I was in the
tiny, snow-trapped town with a vampire behind every
door. The tension you feel while watching "30 Days" is
unrelenting; my wife had her face dug into my shoulder
for most of the film, and my hands hurt from gripping
the arm rests. "30 Days of Night" is everything a
horror movie needs to be, and just plane scary.
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