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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 11/10/2007 : 02:05:30
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30 Days of Night
It's a lucky thing for us that the filmmakers understand vampire language and translate it into subtitles, that's what I say! Otherwise, how would we know what head-honcho vamp Danny Huston is so deliberately enunciating through chiseled blood-stained teeth. I thought it sounded like a combo of Finnish and Inuit, myself.
Hey, maybe that's why this band of vampires wound up at the northern-most town in Alaska to search out their cocktails during a month of Arctic darkness.
Well, I say darkness, but even when the bizarre looking blood lusters disable all the generators, there's still plenty of light left for filming. Funny thing, that!
No one doubts director David Slade's ability to string scenes together in a highly supple and engaging manner. Nor that he's interested in upping the ante on cinema material that straddles the border between the crass and the intelligent. Hard Candy proved that in spades.
Here he sets up Josh Hartnett - who only gets more photogenic as he matures - as the quiet but deep sheriff, involved in a tiff with his wife, a brave firefighter who ain't afraid of cold or nuthin else either. OK you can guess from the get-go these two are going to mend broken fences or die trying.
But that's just speaking movie language. And no one here speaks vampire. Except for the sub-title writers and one sniveling character - a stranger - identified in the credits merely as The Stranger - and whom we first see approaching the town from an ice bound liner, scuffing his ice-strewn way across a frozen wasteland.
How far from the stylish cape, satin-lined coffin, and pomaded hair of that Count from Transylvania!
So anyway, it turns out this snivelly dude, has somehow become the advance party of Danny's band of blood brothers. Somehow he's been able to understand they need him to steal and destroy everyone's mobile [cell] phones. Later on, cooling his heels in the sheriff's cooler, he snivels on about "they didn't take me." So he wants to trade a nice cozy life for the yucky path of blood sniffing, does he? We'll see about that.
Meanwhile, slightly more normal people spend the rest of the film plotting escape from the inevitable - turning into prey before our very eyes.
Oh, there are some moments of astonishment and tension and enough Kensington Gore to satisfy all you ticket-holding vampire lovers. But it's clear that Slade has more to give. I want more than blood from him.
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 11/10/2007 : 03:00:05
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| It's hard to know where to begin with the faults in this film. There are so many plot holes it is ridiculous. Characters behave in an apparently random way again and again, e.g. when Hartnett leaves for about five minutes, his brother suddenly leads the others off elsewhere without explanation, although they have till then been in that location for God-knows-how-long. Talking of which, there is no sense of the passage of time, such that even the therefore necessary day updates on the screen come as big shocks. It is also quite strange that on the last day of sunlight, the sun is safely clear of the horizon. And the vampires are straight out of Buffy, with identical enlarged brow features that as far as I remember from Dracula are not an otherwise established vampire characteristic. Oh dear. |
Edited by - Demisemicenturian on 11/12/2007 13:58:08 |
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 11/10/2007 : 04:29:59
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quote:
Talking of which, there is no sense of the passage of time
Oh, indeed, Sal8pian, indeed. Nor is there any sense of cold, nor any sense of isolation, nor any idea of what exactly the vampires' plan or background is. Did they just wander up there by accident? What are they doing for those thirty days, seeing as they kill practically everyone within an hour? What was their exit strategy? A disappointment all around. |
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Animal Mutha 
"Who would've thunk it?"
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Posted - 11/10/2007 : 11:32:07
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| Stylistically this film started well. I liked the opening scenes which were reminiscent of 'The Thing' and the monochromatic colour scheme (with the occasional splash of red) sets the right feel for the movie. Unfortunately the rest of the film feels like a highlights show, with all the dull bits cut out, which leaves you feeling quite disorientated at times. I just wish that the 'slayings' had been a bit more inventive, rather than a whole bunch of decapitations and the script more than a string of one liners. The only stand out scenes being the fly over shot of the vampires wiping everyone out, snow mixed with arterial red sprays. The machine again monsters scene, which one character manages to survive a rather large explosion??? The final showdown being truly disappointing. It's just another example of Hollywood taking a good premise and badly executing it and oh yeah, Josh Hartnett has all the charisma of a dead fish. |
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30 Days of Night
