30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night **1/2

Directed by David Slade
Written by Steve Niles, Stuart Beattie, and Brian Nelson ,based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith

Starring:
Josh Hartnett as Eben Oleson
Melissa George as Stella Oleson
Danny Huston as Marlow
Ben Foster as The Stranger
Mark Boone Junior as Beau Brower
Mark Rendall as Jake Oleson
Amber Sainsbury as Denise

113 Minutes(Rated R for strong horror violence and language. )
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It was refreshing to finally actually see another mainstream horror movie that was filled with legitimate gore and brutality. That isn't to say that we haven't had gore and brutality, but the "Saw" and "Hostel" movies certainly don't use blood in a legitimate way-and by that I mean through plot. At least "30 Days of Night" tried to tell a story in between as the violence, and that means that we are taking some kind of step forward in the horror genre. Maybe it's not dead after all. . .not just yet. In addition, this might be the first real horror film in a while to get the golden R rating, steering well clear of the PG-13 that Hollywood seems to love. But like every modern horror film-even the ones that are almost good-the movie is littered with bad acting, one dimensional carbon characters, and quite an insane plot. And the ending is a bit too easy-at least one aspect of it.

Taking place in Alaska, where for one month a year the sun doesn't rise at all, this small town is emptying out for the month. Some people stay of course, and one of those is Eben Oleson-played by Josh Harnett, not a huge step above his work in "The Black Dahlia" acting wise-the town sheriff. He's been having problems with his wife, now separated, Stella Oleson-played by Melissa George-who is in town visiting on work detail. When she misses her flight and prepares to spend thirty days in town, spending time with her husband is the least of her worries. The town is really being invaded by blood sucker vampires-led by, of all actors, Danny Huston-who have realized what a great idea it is to be here-they can't take the sun, and the sun isn't coming out any time soon. They begin their bloodbath, and Eben, Stella, and a large group of others in town begin to find shelter to hide from the vampires until they could get sun again.

I often don't like when movies, especially ones like this, try to have a script with character conflict beyond the fact that vampires are after them. For example, the reasons for Josh Harnett and Melissa George having been separated just seem like a waste of time-and trying to inject drama into such cardboard cutouts of real people makes me feel like the screenwriters felt they had something more on their hands than a B-horror movie. If they didn't pretend they were more important than they were, and focused more on horror and scares we could have had something better. Because when it comes to horror and scares and brutality, "30 Days of Night" really doesn't take any prisoners. These vampires are ruthless murderers, and not suave and sophisticated beings like some vampire films try to make them out to be. While Harnett and George are quite bad here-with Melissa George at times trying to sound like Frances McDormand from "Fargo"-it's Danny Huston that seems to shine. Huston has always been quite an oddball, and I though he delivered good work in films like "Silver City" and even "Birth," and his wacky cameo in 'Children of Men." But here, even though its something a little different than what I usually see him in, he fits in perfectly as the head vampire-and he always did have that odd creepy look about him-untrustworthy almost. It made me happy to see him abandon the limited release films to do something a little off color, for him.

On the whole, "30 Days of Night" was a decent horror film, at times drifting from its real focus-of horror and gore-and drifting onto character development. But when you're just throwing in character development for the sake of throwing it in, don't bother at all. And when it does try to make these people real, it does a terrible job. The acting is quite poor-especially by side characters-the script is a little hookey-a little girl vampire is seen eating someone at one point and gets up and says "I'm tired of playing with this one. Do you want to play with me now!"-but at times there are some good scares, good gore, and that's all I really expect with mainstream horror. At times, director David Slade, who directed the much better "Hard Candy"-does get a bit stylish, but in a good way. As this is based on a graphic novel he tries to stick with those roots. One scene where a vampire jumps on top of someones car, they speed up the vampire-covered in black shadow-and it provides quite a creepy and even artistic image. I have a feeling Slade was barred from Hollywood to do some other stylish things he would have liked to do-especially after how great "Hard Candy" was visually-but he is a film maker to look out for.