Director David Slade (“Hard Candy”) overreaches with a visually droning vampire tale set in snowy Alaska during its annual month-long period of darkness (hiring a decent lighting designer might have been a good place to start).
Local sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) has more to worry about than his stranded ex-wife Stella (Melissa George) as a team of black-suit-wearing vampires systematically kill off the remaining residents of the town.
Based on graphic novelist Steve Niles’s book, “30 Days of Night” is an unabashed gore fest.
If only more attention was given to the backstory of the vampires and their motivations, and if only they spoke Romanian instead of the clucking made-up language they utter.
What starts out as a promising horror movie ends up buried beneath a poorly lit sequence of chase scenes.
You can’t have horror without suspense.
Don’t they teach the films of Alfred Hitchcock anymore in film school?
Rated R. 103 mins.
Podcast personality Chico Leo brings David Slade’s 30 DAYS OF NIGHT to THE BIG FEAST. We drink Sierra Nevada’s TORPEDO IPA as men facing down a bunch of fearless vampires in the dead of an Alaskan blackout might do. Bon appétit!
