30 Days of Night (2007)

Welcome back to another installment of Disc Dive! This week we’re embracing the darkness with 30 Days of Night.

Title: 30 Days of Night

Director: David Slade

Released: October 17, 2007 (Theatrical – Canada)

Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes

Disc Format: DVD

The town of Barrow, Alaska is moments away from the annual polar night, an occurrence that results in 30 days of darkness.

As final preparations are being made, a stranger (Ben Foster) slips off a nearby ship and into town unnoticed. Once in Barrow, the stranger sets out to disable communication with the outside world. Phone lines are cut, helicopters wrecked, sled dogs are killed, all of this is stealthily done without raising too much alarm. The town’s sheriff, Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett), is aware of the instances but is treating each as its own thing, oblivious to the fact that each strategic outage is connected.

As he’s beginning to realize things may be connected, he learns that his estranged wife and local fire marshal, Stella (Melissa George), is still in town finishing up her rounds. She knows that she’ll be stuck there for the month of darkness if she can’t get on the last plane out. Eben is fielding an urgent call and asks his deputy, Billy (Manu Bennett) to make sure Stella gets on that plane. Billy deliberately drags his feet, causing Stella to miss the plane and be stuck in Barrow for the polar night.

Once darkness falls on Barrow, vampires appear. They’ve been hiding on the same ship as the stranger, biding their time until darkness fell upon the town. Eben, unaware of the vampires now present, heads out into the darkness to check on the town’s telecom technician. He finds him, well, part of him. He finds his head impaled on a stake and the telecom equipment all smashed to pieces.

These vampires waited patiently for night. Barrow is theirs for the taking.

30 Days of Night is one that I’d seen a few times before but didn’t remember a lot from it. Honestly, I remember it being a better movie than it is.

Now that’s not to say that this isn’t enjoyable or that there aren’t positives. For starters, the cast is great. In fact, you could argue that they are collectively giving a better performance than what the film itself calls for. Hartnett, in one of his last “major” roles before his recent resurgence, is charismatic and believable in his role as sheriff. Ben Foster, as the stranger, is perfect casting. You don’t know much about the character, but you know he makes you uneasy and that he’s up to no good. Foster has cornered the market on excelling in those roles. Huston as the leader of the vampires is also another casting positive. He’s one who always manages to find exactly what a given role needs.

The whole concept itself is another positive. Being in isolated Alaska is terrifying enough in the daytime. Now let’s add a month of darkness on top of it. Oh and as a final touch, here’s some vampires tossed into the mix. Pure nightmare fuel and plenty to work with.

While I can appreciate that the vampires aren’t your standard run-of-the-mill vampires, the inconsistencies with them hurt more than helped. Sometimes they move as slow as typical zombies when it comes to an attack, while other times they seemed to move with lightning-quick speed and precision.

Despite my appreciating the cast themselves, the characters they were given leave a lot to be desired. Everyone in Barrow is very one-dimensional and shallow. There’s not a lot of depth to anyone, making it incredibly hard to invest in anyone’s outcome. I was never rooting for their downfall but was left indifferent to their outcome.

Then there’s the town of Barrow, itself. Sure, it has a lot of buildings that appear to form a town. But they don’t feel cohesive, instead feeling like a bunch of random buildings plopped down in close distance to one another. Also, we know that it is an isolated town, but that’s it. What’s the main source of industry for the town? How is everyone getting by during the other 335 days of the year?

But I am willing to overlook a lot of these issues because when the fun hits, it hits hard.

By no means is 30 Days of Night a “great” film, but it’s an entertaining watch and sometimes that’s all it takes.