30 Days of Night
From the Library X movie vault, I checked out 30 Days of Night. I thought, "Ooh, a vampire movie with no sexy vampires. How refreshing." Thank goodness I didn't spend any money on this movie because it is straight up meh. It's the story of a small town in Alaska called Barrow. It has no roads in or out and basically shuts down for a month long night. Some vampires decide that it would be great to trek through the snow to Barrow when the long night sets in and kill everybody. Why? Because they're bored, and they think they can get away with it. Only one man stands in their way: Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett). He gathers a small band of survivors, and they bravely hide. You read that right. They're big heroic feat is hiding. Let me tell you, watching people cower and wait for the sun to come up (which remember is in a month) is not riveting movie watching. I want flamethrowers, home-made bombs, how about some holy water icicle stakes? Come on, they're in Alaska, they could've totally gotten away with it. But no, instead they shiver and peek out a window for two hours.
I didn't learn any of the humans names and didn't really care to. (Had to go to IMDB to figure out Hartnett's) Didn't learn any of the vamps names either. All character development is replaced by shivering. I get it. It's cold in Alaska. Why aren't the vamps affected? Oh, am I not supposed to ask that question? (Dear me, I poked around a little more on IMDB, and there's so much inaccuracy that it's mind boggling. Alaska doesn't even have sheriffs.)
At the forty minute mark, I was ready for the vamps to find'em, kill'em, and move on, but no, we all had to wait 113 minutes for it to end. Don't bother with the wait, pass on this flick.
Labels: Review
posted by Vampire Librarian at 9:18 PM
8 Comments:
Agreed, on all of that. I did think the vampires were creepy, but the movie was so boring that it took away from the creepiness. And that ending... gag.
It's too bad conceptually it's a great idea...
holy water icicle stake is the most awesome thing ever
I have to agree as well. When I rented it and saw it, I was like, wow, what a great idea: 30 days for the vampires to go on rampage and no sun? Perfect. Why did not anyone think of this before? Saw it, and my goodness, after the 30 min. mark I was looking for ways to put myself out of my misery.
As for the hiding, well, so so. I mean, you try making a stand against them vampire folks and see how long you last. But seriously, they have no stakes or any weapons in this town? No flamethrowers? Heck, I would have settled for a Molotov cocktail. And the sad thing, this is based on a graphic novel, which I only hope is somewhat better than this piece of tripe.
Best, and keep on blogging.
My husband keeps insisting that I will like this movie and I know that I won't. I like vampire movies but was never interested in this one. You've confirmed my instincts about it.
Angel, I was willing to give the hiding a pass if they used it as a time to regroup and plan. Eben made that whole big speech about understanding the cold and knowing the town, but I didn't really see any of that good insider info play out on screen. The first assault on the town by the vamps was interesting. I thought I was in for a good them against us treat of a showdown, but then they wound up in the attic and settled in to wait. Ugh.
Next up, I am Legend. Wee!
u obviously dont know anything about vampire movies, since this is the first since quite a while, which came up with new ideas, nice vampire speech, no holywood ending, which is just great, cool effects, so there s nothing like that, accepte the old good ones like JCs Vampires or something, but from the newer movies this is definetly the best, since underworld is not only a vampire movie......
Anon, I'd like to recommend Perfect Creature for you. It's out of New Zealand and has originality coming out the whazoo. This is an alternative history, steampunk, vampires as holy order movie. It has nice production values, good cast, no Hollywood ending, and a nice bit of social commentary. It was made in 2006. I only just watched it, but was very pleased. Netflix is scary good sometimes at recommending movies.
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