Horror films have two options. They can either take themselves completely seriously and treat their stories as if, in some twisted alternate reality, they could really happen; or they can plant their tongues firmly in their cheeks and have a good laugh (they're laughing with the genre, not at it).
30 Days of Night makes a decent run at the first scenario, but it plummets hard into a common pitfall among horror flicks: good plot, bad dialogue.
The Plot
In Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town on the North American mainland, Sheriff Eben Oleson (played by Josh Hartnett) is getting ready to settle in for the annual month of complete darkness when strange things begin to occur.
What seems at first like a small crime wave caused by a stranger quickly devolves into an all-out bloodbath courtesy of a pack of vampires.
And these aren't your Buffy The Vampire Slayer stupid-brute-type vampires. These are cunning undead creatures with super-human strength who slaughter anyone and everyone in their path.
The sheriff must lead a band of survivors to wait out the month of darkness in hopes that the return of the sun will drive the vamps away.
The Cast
Hartnett is the only big name in the film and one of only a handful of characters who are required to do much acting beyond looking a) scary as the bowels of hell or b) scared out of their mind.
John Huston plays the leader of the vampire pack, and he's as creepy a creature of the night as I've ever seen.
Aussie Melissa George continues her streak of taking roles in horror films (this is her fourth in three years) as Stella, the sheriff's estranged wife who misses her plane out of Barrow and must help her hubby fight off blood-thirsty monsters despite the tension in their relationship.
The Good
30 Days of Night has all the tools to be a great horror film. From the filming style to the makeup to the film's pace, it's flat-out scary. Even the concept in general is chilling: Vampires can't survive in sunlight, so what do they do? They go to a town where there is no sunlight for a month and have themselves a feeding frenzy.
Also, the vampires in this movie are less stylized and more realistic, if one can say such a thing. Unlike Dracula, there's no libido in these creatures. And unlike other vampire movies and TV shows like Blade, Underworld and the aforementioned Buffy, they're not going to kung fu you to death before sinking their teeth into you.
Comparing them to another popular movie monster, these undead demons resemble werewolves in their actions, only more human and therefore more terrifying.
Another plus is that the film didn't pander to the easy jump scene. In a town filled with darkness through 90 percent of the film, director David Slade could have thrown vampires at us every few minutes. Instead, he allows the creatures of the night to have varied entrances. Sometimes they jump through windows, causing us to jump out of our seats, but other times their presence is revealed slowly to add to the film's overall creepiness.
The Bad
Somebody, be it a producer, director or screenwriter, decided there needed to be some kind of love story in the film, and that would be okay if the love story wasn't so lame and predictable.
It's clear from the beginning that Eben and Stella will have some sort of reconciliation because of their numerous brushes with a horrible, gory death (what's that Sandra Bullock said to Keanu Reeves in Speed about not basing relationships on shared intense experiences?), and the way it all ends gets about a 7.9 out of 10 on the campy scale.
The Limited Options
While 30 Days of Night definitely doesn't live up to its potential, it may be better than any other fright flick coming out this Halloween season. If nothing else, the idea behind the film's plot is compelling enough to smooth over some of the bad writing.