30 Days of Night Nothing More Than a Typical Zombie Movie with Vampires

In 2002, comic creators Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith released a horror comic book called 30 Days of Night. The story became a break-out success for Niles, whose previous comic work received very little attention. Almost immediately, studios began competing for the rights to adapt the story into a film. Director David Slade (Hard Candy) was hired and Josh Hartnett (The Black Dahlia), Melissa George (Turistas), and Danny Huston (The Number 23) were cast. Despite Niles' involvement in the screenwriting process, the film bears little resemblence to his comic, sacrificing the story's original elements in favor of stock horror formulas.

The film is set in the town of Barrow, Alaska. For thirty days in the winter, the town is plunged into complete darkness. Sheriff Eben Oleson (Hartnett) and his wife, Stella (George) have recently separated. Stella, a fire marshall, returns to Barrow before the town shuts down for a month for an inspection. However, an accident causes her to become stranded in Barrow for the entire thirty days of night, as no planes will fly during this period. Things take a turn for the worse when a rambling psychotic appears in town (Ben Foster), claiming that "they" are coming and they will take him with them. Following the stranger's appearance, the electricity is shut down and bodies start to turn up. A group of vampires led by Marlow (Huston) have chosen to invade Barrow during these thirty days of night and embark on a feeding frenzy.

This sounds like a pretty original premise for a vampire story, and it is. Niles came up with a great idea when he originally wrote the comic, and he added more elements to it. For example, in the comic, although there is not much focus put on the murders of the townspeople, what does get a good amount of focus is the appearance of a prominant vampire leader named Vicente. Marlow, evidently a very arrogant individual, invites Vicente for the celebration and Vicente promptly criticizes Marlow for his stupidity in risking exposure of the vampires after it took centuries for them to become myths and Vicente kills the young vampire, ordering that the town be burned to the ground to cover the tracks.

Vicente's role is a very crucial part in the original story, so one would think it would be included in the film. Except... it's not. In fact, Vicente doesn't even appear in the movie. And Marlow's character in the film bears absolutely no resemblence to his comic book counterpart -- be it personality, appearance, mannerisms, or even language. The vampires on the whole are not portrayed with any sort of personality and throughout the entire film, all they do is growl and hiss and attack. In fact, the film bears a strong resemblence not to vampire movies, but zombie movies.

And ultimately, that is where 30 Days of Night fails. Instead of adapting a very original vampire story, Slade has taken the basic concept behind the graphic novel and simply put it over a classic zombie formula. Even down to the cliché character archetypes from vampire movies. In fact, if you took the characters behind this film and dropped them into an old farmhouse, you wouldn't be able to differentiate the characters from those of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

What makes this film even more infuriating is that Slade had ample opportunity in the hundred and thirteen minute run time. But rather than using this time to make a faithful adaptation, he chose to insert a cliché story about the Olesons' marriage troubles (something which had absolutely no presence in the graphic novel), as well as the stock scene where the older brother tells his younger brother to look after everyone once he's gone. The film spends a good chunk of time giving us the background of these stock characters in the beginning at the expense of providing proper build-up to the vampires, who should be the focus. Instead, the vampires are secondary, little more than set decorations.

Given that Slade's previous credits include the highly-original and very well-made thriller Hard Candy, I'm very disappointed in his performance with this film. Slade is capable of so much more, which leads me to believe the hand of studio interference was very present during production. Sam Raimi is a producer for the film and he seems to be making it a habit of taking original and creative stories and turning them into standard, stock Hollywood fare (just compare Ju-on to The Grudge).

In the end, it's in your best interest to save your money. Instead of buying a ticket for this crap, pick up the original graphic novel. It may be overrated, but it's far superior to this dreck.