So, let's begin with my pet peeve,
30 Days Of Night.
And some of the gushing reviews that put this movie at a respectable 6.6/10:
One of the most effective horror movies I've seen in a long time
Best Vampire Movie in Over a Decade
A Breath of Fresh Bloody Air for the Vampire Legend!!
The most intense and thrilling film of the year!
Dark, moody, stylish..IGNORE the haters
Very unique take on an old legend
These are all taken from the first page of IMDB user reviews for the movie, which, fortunately, also include these bits of sanity:
Very boring and full of clichés
One of the worst movies I've ever seen
Now, being a fan of horror genre since childhood, I found the premise of the movie very exciting: A pack of vampires terrorizes a small Alaskan community over the course of a single polar night spanning over 30 days. Sounds awesome right? I mean, it's the classic tale of a band of survivors struggling to overcome insurmountable odds in a hostile environment over the course of a whole month? I was all giddy with anticipation of seeing how they manage to pull this off, hiding from a lethal supernatural force while at the same time having to survive the brutal cold as well as deal with psychological challenges of being isolated and under constant threat. Awesome? Think again.
The movie starts off well enough, setting up some the token love story and introducing the main cast with some decent characterization. There are signs of sinister activity, caused by a ghoul vampires sent to disable communications (he apparently stole a heap of cell phones from town residents and burned them), an abandoned ship is found (in a rediculously dumb nod to the original story). Main characters love interest is stranded when she has a car accident on her way to the airport and is stuck for the duration. The night falls and, predictably, all hell lets loose. A band of survivors hides in an attick to escape the general carnage.
And this is where you should stop watching, because it's all downhill from there. The survival element is vritually non-existent. There is no hypothermia or frostbite, no hunger to add to the feeling of desperation. The passage of time is indicated by on-screen messages of the "Then, 7 days later" type and some stubble on Hartnett's face. That's it. Vampire portrayal is erratic as they go from "assassin with superhero powers" awesome to "can't catch human hero when he escapes through back door of a house" moron. Editing is just terrible. You literally get the feeling there's another hour of the movie left on the cutting room floor, making the movie's pacing terrible. The titular "30 days of night" are completely wasted as watching the movie you realize it could all have happened over the course of one or two nights. Characters... what characters? Oh, you mean the wooden cutouts representing characters? The acting is also very hit and miss.
The whole movie is average to below average mess that's also a giant fuck-you to the fairly original premise. Not even so-bad-it's-good.
I mean, seriously, could there be a more shallow and predictable choice for those people? So the target demographic of that movie actually went and bought it, what's surprising or uplifting about that?
