When the Vampires Come to Alaska: A Review of 30 Days of Night

In 2002 Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith created a comic book about vampires coming to a town in Alaska that experiences a month of darkness. When I picked up the book, with the very scary and creepy up-close drawing of a mouthful of fangs, I had one thought, "Why hadn't anyone thought of this before?" What with the popularity of vampire books and movies since Bram Stoker first put pen to paper, putting them in a place that experiences perpetual darkness seems like a no-brainer. You had to wonder why Stephen King didn't set "'Salems Lot" in Alaska.

The comic book was fairly ground-breaking. Long gone were the romantic vampires who were also lovers that Anne Rice liked to write about. These guys were stone-cold killers. They did not look attractive. Their mouths were permanently stained with blood and their mouths were full of rows of fangs, like some kind of shark mouth. They had long, scary, dirty claws at the end of their fingers. In short, they were inhuman and they were scary, the way vampires were meant to be.

Of course, a premise like that was destined for the big screen. When I first heard that "30 Days of Night" was coming to the big screen I met it with a mix of excitement and trepidation. As I mentioned in a recent review of "Iron Man" the translation from comic book to screen is hit or miss. When the movie came and went from theaters faster than the month it is black in the fictional town of Barrow I was even more worried.

Well, "30 Days of Night" is now available on DVD, video and OnDemand. It will soon be making the rounds on cable television networks. I am pleased and surprised to tell you that if you are a fan of horror and, in particular, a fan of the vampire movie this is well worth your time.

The movie stars Josh Hartnett as the Sheriff of the tiny Alaskan town of Barrow. The town is preparing for the month-long siege of darkness. At the same time, a stranger shows up. He cuts the town off completely from the rest of the world, ends up in the jail cell, and begins taunting the sheriff and his family that there is death coming.

This is where the vampires show up. They are not your standard movie vampires. These are translations of the creatures from the comic book. Their mouths are full of fangs. They speak in shrieks and noises. Their leader, portrayed by Danny Huston, speaks in some kind of language that requires sub-titles. Even he says, at one point, "We should have come here years ago."

The scenes of the town's slaughter are, to say the least, brutal. This is a movie not for the squeamish. Blood flows quite regularly and when the towns people start having to chop off a head or two to prevent someone bitten from becoming part of the undead, well, you may find yourself turning away from the screen.

This is not a great movie. I don't want to give anyone the impression that this is a movie in the pantheon of something like "Alien" or "Halloween" or "The Thing" but for something you might think of renting, adding to your NetFlix queue or happen to catch some late night on cable, this is a pretty good flick.

The characters are not sketched out in any great detail. This is the kind of thing that really throws off the critics and I do recall many of them complaining about that when the movie was in theaters. I, for one, don't really mind that when it comes to my horror. I like the action to get started and the scenes of the slaughter, with the townspeople running and the vampires eating, are edge-of-your-seat and terrifying. I enjoyed similar scenes in the beginning of the remake of "Dawn of the Dead."

Josh Hartnett is passable as the lead character. He is not exactly a great actor, but he is pleasant enough and easy to watch. The rest of the cast is, well, really, when you get down to it just meat for the vampires. As such, they manage to play their parts well.

Does the movie have some scares? Yes. Does the movie entertain? Yes. Do the vampires do evil things? You bet. Do the good guys get to be heroes? Yes.

The ending is the same as the one in the comic book. If you read the book then you will know how this one ends up. There are some characters that have been eliminated from the movie that were in the comic book that I was only slightly disappointed to see go, but you won't miss them enough to be concerned. You will root for the townsfolk and you will definitely despise the vampires and that's the way it should be in a vampire movie.

Again, be warned, this is a violent movie. The blood flows freely. The vampires are definitely mean. There is nothing romantic or gothic here.