30 Days of Night 2007 Film Based on Comic Series

Vicious Vampires Descend On The Alaskan Town of Barrow

Sep 4, 2009

Barrow, Alaska is about to enter a month without a sunrise. Those that remain behind in the town find themselves in a fight for their lives when vampires attack the town.

30 Days of Night is based on the comic book mini series of the same name. The film was directed by David Slade. Set in Barrow, Alaska, the film follows a group of men and women trying to survive till sunrise after their town is infested by vampires.

The small Alaskan town of Barrow is preparing for its annual 30 days of night, in which the majority of the population leaves because the sun will not be seen for a month. The Stranger (Ben Foster) arrives before the sun disappears, he kills all the dogs, and destroys any means the townsfolk have of calling the outside world. The Stranger is the herald for a band of savage vampires intending on feasting on the town’s people during the month of darkness.

The initial crimes committed by the Stranger seem random and violent. The Sherriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) investigates the crimes initially not realising that the Stranger committed them. Then he learns that his estranged wife Stella Oleson (Melissa George) has missed the last plane out of town and is now stuck in Barrow. Following the Stranger’s arrest and the sun falling from the sky the communications station is attacked.

What follows is a slaughter as the vampires feast on the majority of the people left. A few survivors, including Eben and Stella, manage to huddle together in the attic of a house hoping that they can last the month until the sun rises again.

The vampires are led by Marlowe (Danny Huston), they tend to utter inhuman screeches and when they do speak they talk to one another in an unknown language. During the film several people are attacked but manage to survive, only to slowly begin to turn into vampires over the next few days.

It soon becomes obvious that the vampires have no intention of letting anyone survive untill the sun comes up.

Pros and Cons

The vampires in this film are fast, vicious, dangerous and unless they are shot in the head bullets do nothing. The screeches they make are ear splitting and terrifying. They move like lightening, their teeth are like needles and are capable of ripping people apart with their bare hands. The vampires are diabolical, they seem to be practically invulnerable, and the survivors struggle to stay hidden from them.

Unfortunately, the vampires seem to slaughter the majority of the town’s population within the first few minutes after the sun goes down. The audience might be left wondering why the vampires are killing almost everybody off so quickly, after all, they have 30 whole days of night before the sun will rise again. They could have slowly killed off the population over the month, instead of simply massacring everyone on the first night.

The vampire’s language might have worked better if there were no subtitles. If the audience couldn’t even understand what they were saying then they might have been even more menacing.

Vampire films seem to be a very hard thing to do well, and this is one of the examples of a film done well. The plot is simple, and the vampires are frightening. The human survivors struggle to cope with the horror of the situation they find themselves in and they slowly realise that not all of them will make it to the sunrise.

Unfortunately the vampires look inhuman, with their teeth being needle-like and their eyes are stained black. It does make the audience wonder how they are able to blend in to regular society. It is possible that they have a human form but if they do then that form is not seen during the film.

30 Days of Night manages to give vampires back some of the menace they have been lacking in recent years. They are not mindless killers driven by the relentless pursuit of blood, nor are they Europeans seducing their way around the world. They are vicious but they possess a dark intelligence which makes it harder for the survivors to stay alive

Unfortunately, they should have taken their time killing everyone not done most of it in one night.

The copyright of the article 30 Days of Night 2007 Film Based on Comic Series in Horror Films is owned by Christopher Sharman. Permission to republish 30 Days of Night 2007 Film Based on Comic Series in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.