30 Days of Night, 2007.
Directed by David Slade.
Starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Boone Junior, Manu Bennett, and Mark Rendall.
SYNOPSIS:
After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires.
It has been well documented over the years that the vampire movie became something of an anathema during the 2000s thanks to a certain saga that presented the fanged, blood-obsessed beasts as whining teenagers with shimmering skin, but there were one or two titles that slipped through the cracks and showed that the undead could still be gruesome and dangerous in an 18-rated movie without compromising on the horror.
Based on the 2002 comic book series by Steve Niles, 30 Days of Night is set in the remote Alaskan town of Barrow where, for 30 days every year, the sun remains below the horizon and the town remains in darkness. Not usually a problem as many of the locals disappear to other locations for a month, leaving behind a core skeleton crew to keep things ticking over, but during this particular month-long polar night Barrow is being visited by a ghost ship full of vampires.
Led by the sinister Marlow (Danny Huston), these vampires aren’t romantic or sexy as they pick off the locals who have remained in the town, not turning them into vampires but savagely killing for food. Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife Stella (Melissa George) gather together a small band of townsfolk and hole up so they can attempt to work out a way to stop the merciless slaughter, but with no sunlight due for several weeks they will have to try and survive without the aid of the ultimate weapon.
Originally released in 2007, 30 Days of Night hit when horror movies were back in vogue and doing well at the box office, although this is no exercise in low budget and badly-lit torture porn brutality as the movie looked fantastic, had an interesting plot and featured a stellar cast all seemingly on board and not embarrassed to be in a horror movie. Looking at it nearly 20 years later in this current era of locked-down and lingering wide shots, the shaky-cam style that was popular at the time is much more noticeable, but this new restoration looks absolutely stunning, with every frame clearly detailed and looking like a movie poster in its own right. This is none-more-obvious than in the opening scenes when a vagrant stranger (played by Ben Foster) is standing on the edge of the frozen landscape watching the ghost ship approaching, and the clarity and scale of the effect looks incredible.
Obviously, this is primarily a very dark movie visually but given the new polish you can make out every detail in every scene, even down to the snowflakes that are falling as the band of survivors sneak their way around the nearly abandoned town. But as much as you want the people to survive, it is the vampires that are the focal point of the movie and when they are on the screen 30 Days of Night seems to shift gears very rapidly.
Hollywood royalty Danny Huston is not an obvious choice to lead a group of bloodthirsty monsters – unless you wanted to bring back Hammer’s gothic style of vampire and then he probably would be – as these vampires are soulless monsters with no charm or wit, and very large teeth. Their make-up largely consists of black contact lenses, huge gnashing fangs and long fingernails, but the filmmakers also created their own vampire language for this movie and Danny Huston is brilliant as he delivers his lines in a series of inhuman screeches and screams, his dead eyes giving nothing away and making the vampire a monster to be feared once again. It also helps that they are shrouded in mystery and we get no background for them – they just appear and cause carnage.
For their part, the heroes of the piece make for characters you want to get behind. The Sheriff and his wife have a backstory that we see playing out as we are introduced to them, as many of the townsfolk comment on them separating. Stella was supposed to go back to the more southern US states for the month but due to an accident she missed her flight, meaning she has to stay and then – of course – fall back in love with her husband when their lives are in danger. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George play well off each other and have a chemistry that makes you believe they could have been an item once upon a time and circumstances have thrown them together again, and although their performances do feel a little one-note by the end, the script dictates they have to hit certain beats for the movie to end the way it does and it all works well enough.
Also featuring 1990s/2000s character actor mainstay Mark Boone Junior and some terrific gore effects – including one of the best onscreen decapitations you are likely to see in any film ever, an extremely well-rendered combination of CGI and practical effects – 30 Days of Night holds up as a bloody and violent horror movie full of fast-paced vampire action offset with slower, more thoughtful character moments, and with this new 4K restoration it looks the best it ever has. Yes, the plot is a little contrived and you have to make allowances for certain things to happen, but it is a horror movie after all, not a true-to-life biography.
The Blu-ray disc includes new extended interviews with director David Slade, actor Mark Rendall, composer Brian Reitzell and creator Steve Niles, plus archive behind-the-scenes featurettes and an audio commentary by Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and producer Rob Tapert, so plenty of material to get stuck into should you wish. If you don’t, however, and just want the movie then this restored version is definitely worth picking up, even if you already own it on a previous release as the difference in picture quality is well worth the upgrade.
More importantly, though, 30 Days of Night is the movie that made vampires terrifying again, with Danny Huston’s Marlow ranking as one of the genre’s creepiest undead icons.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
