31 Days of Fright, Day 30: 30 Days of Night

Welcome to day 30 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe closes out the month with...

30 DAYS OF NIGHT
2007
Rated R

Vampires are not romantic.

Look, it’s not like I don’t get it. The whole concept of the vampire is very sexual in nature, what with the exchange of bodily fluids and all the neck-play involved. Obviously there is just naturally going to be a certain level of sexuality involved in any vampire story, but quite frankly, I’m sick to death of sexy vampires. Vampirism isn’t sexy, it’s just sexual. Personally, I blame Bella Lugosi for the confusion.

Count Dracula – at least as imagined by Tod Browning, via Mr. Lugosi – was a seducer. Seduction is sexy. It can even be romantic. I get that. The problem is that, at its core, the act of vampirism isn’t romance, it’s rape. It isn’t the wooing of a consenting partner into a mutual act, it’s taking by force and leaving the victim as a shell of what they once were. It isn’t civilized and seductive, its brutal and animalic.

That’s what I like about the vampires in 30 Days of Night. They are ugly and brutal and merciless. They’re cunning, but cunning isn’t a mark of humanity, it’s the mark of a predator. The creatures that descend upon Barrow, Alaska in David Slade’s adaptation of the Steve Niles/Ben Templesmith comic are anything but sexy, which is exactly how it should be.

The story – for those of you who don’t already know – is that a group of vampires arrives in Barrow, Alaska just in time for the month-long darkness that leaves the town essentially cut off from the rest of the world. The vampires are preceded by a Stranger (Ben Foster) who sneaks around town destroying anything that could be used to communicate with the outside world – cell phones, sled dogs, helicopters, you get the idea – in preparation for the invasion. I won’t give away any plot points beyond that, except to say that what follows is a full fledged blood-bath of Biblical proportions, and that only a small handful of the town’s residents survives to drive the story – and the conflict – forward.

I’ve heard from some that this movie isn’t faithful enough to the comic series, and I can’t really argue, as I’ve never read it. If you have read it and you’re the type of person who demands absolute loyalty to a movie’s source material, I guess you might be disappointed. Personally, I’ve always said that every story should be judged solely on its own merit, and not upon how it compares to what came before or what comes after. I really don’t care how faithful it is to the comic series. This movie is scary, intriguing, engaging, and – most of all – still as gripping as ever after the fifth viewing. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, by all means, feel free to give it a pass.

I’m not saying the movie is without its flaws. There’s a certain level of illogic underlying the whole thing. I won’t get into specifics, as it might spoil certain plot points, but it should suffice to say that the motives and actions of certain characters don’t always make the most sense. Still, even having had the logical flaws pointed out to me, I just can’t bring myself to give a crap about them once the story gets rolling. Perhaps I have an overactive suspension-of-disbelief muscle, but the whole thing still works fine for me.

So there you have it. As I said in my Nosferatu review (CLICK HERE for that), vampires were my first horror love. The vampire sub-genre as a whole has been pretty disappointing in recent years, but vampires are a resilient species, and I don’t believe we’ve yet seen the last good story they have to offer. In fact, if movies like 30 Days of Night are any indicator, I think they've still got some delightful tricks up their sleeves. Am I being overly optimistic? Maybe, but what can I say? I guess I’m a romantic.

8/10

-GABE


Thanks for riding along! Be sure to click on the banner below to check out our YouTube channel, where you can watch our videos, "like" them, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment or a question, or even suggest a movie for future review. You can also check us out on Facebook (CLICK HERE) and Twitter (CLICK HERE). And don't forget to check back every day in October for a new installment in our 31 Days of Fright!