30 Days of Night (2007)

Man, this had some real potential.  I mean, this could have been in the makings of a great horror flick.  Ultimately, it falls flat on it's face and ends up as one of the few horror films that had unrealized potentials.  I mean, the concept is pretty awesome.  Vampires roaming an Alaskan town for 30 days of no rules.  That would have been a masterpiece in the hands of a greater director/screenwriter.  Give it to someone like the director of Ringu (Not the Gore Verbinski remake) and we would be talking some of the creepiest films ever.  Unfortunately, while there are pretty cool moments, it doesn't mask the cliched script, cardboard characters, and pretty weak performances.  I really wanted to like this, but it's not good.

30 Days of Night is about a small local town in Alaska.  Of course, if you knew anything about your geography, you'd know Alaska is very cold, causing huge snowstorms.  So once every year, these snowstorms cover the sun, literally giving Alaska 30 days of night.  Imagine going to school at nighttime.  Pretty intense right?  Well, just before this begins, a ship carrying around, oh let's say, 100/200 vampires enter the coast of this city.  So, enter our main character, Eben.  He's a sheriff, who is snooping around the town due to weird occurrences.  Then, to his and everyone's horror, the town is raided by the vampires, killing practically everyone.  So, Eben and his friends hide from the vampires, trying to survive.  That premise is epic.  No words needed.  A film where vampires can roam all around all day is pretty cool.  Especially, considering that the film is practically shot at night.

Unfortunately, that is where most positives end.  Ben Foster appears as the psycho, loony man, who warns everyone of the vampires' arrival, and he's really great.  Unfortunately, he gets little screen time.  And his character goes nowhere.....No literally, he goes nowhere.  He's handcuffed to a bed.  That's as good as the acting gets cause everyone else's was pure garbage.  Seriously, for a guy who was up and coming as Josh Hartnett was, he really wasn't that good of an actor.  Also, this is the film that killed his career.  Seriously, where did this guy go?  The female lead was the worst.  Every line was stiff and she proves again why blondes can't act.  It is clear as to why this film never won any Oscars.  Well, besides the fact that it's a horror flick.  But that's okay so long as the film has great dialogue, right!!!!??

WRONG!!!  This film has the worst one-liners ever.  Even Ben Foster's line "Their coming tonight." sounded really stupid.  Seriously, don't go into this film expecting an Oscar worthy script.  Also, there were many plotholes.  Like when so-and-so turns himself/herself into a vampire, he/she says "I can smell you guys' blood."  That's cool and all, but how come the other vampires couldn't smell them when they were hiding?  I guess the script writer forgot that.  Also, the death of one of the villains (Oh, and it's not a spoiler cause we all know some of the villains have to die) is terrible!!!  A fist rams through his head?  What?  Seriously, that was the worst villain death ever.  Kill yourselfs, David Slade and Steve Niles.  Seriously, this could have been a great film!  Why, oh why, do I get this feeling like the writer just quit halfway through and just wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Overall, 30 Days of Night is a very terrible disappointment.  From an awesome concept and some genuinely scary scenes (OKAY, JUST ONE!!), this film falls flat.  It's a shame too considering the costume design was pretty neat and Ben Foster gave a good performance.  The film just doesn't cohere like it should have.  Instead, we're given a weird death scene.  Followed by a huge rip off of the ending of Blade 2.  Seriously, it's the same exact scene.  Just with white folk and a different setting.  If you know me, you should know how much film tropes/rip offs really piss me off.  After an interesting start, some good trailers, and an amazing concept, the film itself is nowhere near as cool as the things I mentioned.  It just doesn't work.  Nope.  Not at all.

4.5/10