30 Days of Night

Saw 30 Days of Night, a solidly okay movie about a small town in Alaska that is raided by vampires during the height of winter when the sun does not rise for 30 days.  The film was based off of a comic book and the comic book roots still show in the form of unnecessary sub-plots that are briefly alluded to and never discussed again.  In print media, you can sort of pause and ruminate over these threads, but in a movie it's sort of distracting to watch two characters rehash their breakup after fleeing from vampires.

The movie started off very shaky.  The town is sort of softened up by a sleeper agent who cuts telephone wires and power lines and so on.  The main character is the sheriff of the town and we start out with a very abbreviated investigation of the telephone and power-line vandalism.  The film is very disinterested in this angle however, and the reason it's so abbreviated is so we can get to the meat of the film: the siege of the town by the vampires.

Once the siege begins, things get more interesting.  There's some grim and realistic portrayals of what trauma does to people and how folks react.  There's also a palpable sense of dread and fear as the vampires pick off townsfolk one by one.  It's more survival horror or action-horror however, which is not my particular cup of tea, but it was well-done here.

The film uses a lot of close-ups and shaky cams, which is a blessing and a curse.  Some of the close-ups are absolutely lovely.  There's an older woman who is one of the core survivors and every shot of her lined face was gold.  Unfortunately, sometimes the fight scenes are shot in close-up (possibly to save budget?) and it's frustrating to not really know what's going on because all we can see is the sheriff's giant face.  (The sheriff by the way, is played by Josh Hartnett, who is quite attractive, but who does not look a day over 20.  I found it hard to buy him as a grizzled, divorced sheriff.)

One last gripe: the vampires all wear suits and flowing dresses.  Vampires are often analogues for city-folk (pale, clothed in black, exotic hair-cuts and sophistication) but this film makes that reference fairly explicit.  At one point the sheriff rallies everyone by reminding them that they live in Alaska because they're the only ones tough enough to live there (which is not a great reason to live anywhere.)  It feels a little creepy post-2016.

But the film is pretty okay.  It's not amazing and has a rocky start, but it has moments.  The vampire makeup is good, and the vampires seem very creepy.  There's some lovely scenes with the ragged vampires standing in the snow.  There's some nice, grim drama around how far one might be willing to go to survive.  It has its lumps, but you could do worse.  I wouldn't recommend watching it now (there's better films about either vampires or trauma) but if you happen to catch it on TV or at random, you could do worse..