Thursday, October 9, 2008

30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007)

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Mark Boone Junior, Ben Foster, Danny Huston,

Directed By: David Slade
Written By: Steve Niles, Brian Nelson & Stuart Beattie
Based On The Comic By: Steve Niles & Ben Templesmith
Cinematography By: Jo Willems
Editor: Art Jones
Production Designer: Paul D. Asterburry
Art Direction: Nigel Churcher & Mark Robins
Costume Design: Jane Holland


I am not a reader of the original comic book of which this film is based. but I can say that this film is certainly entertaining. It seems to be somewhat different then some recent horror offerings as this seems to be a atheist horror film. Now I know most horror film seem to have a atheist spirit to them. This one seems to have a more hopeless theme while in most horror films there is some sense of hope and chance of survival once they defeat the deadly presence and with the help of luck and some otherworldly advice they will win. This film while there are survivors seems to just have a Nihlistic view that suggest there is no god the vampires know it because they have lived it and are just roaming the earth for as long as they can with this knowledge. They have no sympathy anything in there way is food no morals why there are no rules so why should they live by them. Which naturally leads to more questions primarily by me how were they created a science experiment are they a endangered species that can convert. Did they become this way by evolution because it’s obvious they weren’t born this way at least most of them.

Take the killing of children which has become far from taboo in the years since the untouchables made it shocking a new level of what could be shown and done on screen and something that it seems many modern filmmakers have been trying to top ever since. Like a scene in this film that involves a vampire child and another where a child cries out for help and what ends up becoming of her.

While I do have some simple questions like if you have a full month to feed why try to wipe out everybody in one night. Knowing that they don’t know what can hurt or kill you. Your cutting off your food supply s soon what is there left to eat. Another question if the feed on blood how come they leave so much still in the victim it’sl ike only eating mashed potato’s with your hands and whatever falls in your plate is a after thought. Plus how are the vampires chewing peoples throats yet they can still scream. How does the time pass of a month but we are never told how much time has passed it looks like it all occurs in one night. Even though in the beginning of the film it has subtitles telling us everything like the location of the town. That this town goes through 30days of night etc. even though the title also tells us that. I know this movie probably had a limited budget but there are some odds and ends I’m not going to mention that could have been tightened and or dealt with that would have help this movie considerably.

The only thing I am left to say is it tried to be a popcorn movie and succeeded but with a little more money, time and a grander script. The movie leaves a lot of stuff in our hands to guess what is going on or what is seen. This could have been monumental maybe I’m being bold here but maybe even a classic. In better hands who knows it could have been like this film tries to emulate the new millennium “The Thing” in fact as I watched this all I could think of is what would john carpenter do with this material? It certainly reminds you of his films like “The Thing” , “Assault On Precinct 13” and “Prince of Darkness”

Despite all this I enjoyed the film it had a claustrophobic feel filled with tension. It takes place in a small town. But felt like a small stage. Genuine suspense and scares. Action filled moments. Naturalistic character performances. Though special mention must be made of the always spectacular Ben Foster and the surprising Josh Hartnett he’s not great but at least here you get a sense that he is trying. He also did what was needed for the role what more can you ask for. Well a better third act and fleshing out the vampires wouldn’t have been too much. Just like in the end why not just stay hiding a few more hours since the sun was coming out instead of infecting yourself for a hand to hand battle. Plus days and weeks supposedly pass while the group is hiding in the attic but you can hardly tell it seems like it all happens in the same night.

It Would have been more effective if instead of half the time in the film they would show the actual carnage instead of describing what happened to a love one when the vampires started to attack I know there is a limited budget but this is not a indie film it’s a studio show instead of tell. People pay to see the action.

In the end. I can actually say I was never bored by this film. The director david slade is on a role I believe he has what it takes to be a genre great filmmaker.

Now I don’t know copyright laws to the T but I found this list actually on imdb and here the person who posted this makes some good points (they are not all golden) of what I was talking about on how this could have been great. So if it is you please don’t sue me as I make no meny off of this whatsoever

1) Show the town people getting on some kind of airplane in the beginning.
2) Show an older person who could actually pass for a sheriff telling Hartnett that Billy is in charge, then have that sheriff board the plane. (To wit, make Hartnett a Young deputy and put him in charge later by default, so that we don't have to try to believe he was elected))

3) Get rid of grandma and her marijuana in the sheriff's office. Stupid subplot.
4) Get rid of the Stranger's accent; it was terrible.
5) Have Billy arrest the Stranger in the diner instead of Hartnett; it was way too convenient that both Hartnett and his ex would be in there at the same time. Besides, Billy was missing for most of the movie anyway and looks much more like the kind of cop who could slap the cuffs on someone than Josh does.
6) Have the stranger destroy the cell phone repeater tower (they must have one in town) rather than try to concoct a way in which he could acquire all the cell phones in one afternoon.

7) Don't bother killing the dogs, if a vampire can outrun a truck the audience can guess that dogs are useless as an escape vehicle.

8) Actually show the vandalized helicopter, and don't worry about how the rotor blade gets in the tampon crusher. Surely the budget would have allowed for this.

9) When the fat guy gets killed at the power station, actually introduce the vampires at that time so that we don't have to spend the rest of the movie wondering how many there are. Also so that we understand that they are not quite in town yet.

10) When Hartnett's wife looks through the (presumably) infra red binoculars, actually show some vampires sprinting towards them to justify her and Josh beating their retreat.

11) Instead of the kitchen window scene, which shows little beyond a woman being dragged under houses, show the vampires rush the jail. And show how the kid gets away (have to replace grandma with someone there, maybe another deputy or someone who could pass as a sheriff's clerk).

12) Show the vampires assemble somewhere near the edge of town and storm into the first house so that we don't have to guess why Marlow is suddenly in the living room skewering people and playing with the phonograph.

13) Referring to #12 above, show that first home invasion with the husband emptying the revolver into various vampires like any homeowner would do in such a desperate situation (especially ones who were just told by the sheriff to go home and load their firearms).

14) If the bird's eye view of the initial attack on the town en masse cannot reveal who is a vampire and who is an alaskan, then get rid of it. Some scenes of this segment actually appear to show people running past vampires to shoot other humans with shotguns. (Also, all pump action shotguns used in the film should be carried with the slide forward instead of back). This scene was obviously intended to be one of the film's high lights but instead was pretty confusing and actually brought the question to my lips, "Do vampires use shotguns?"

15) Re-Position the diner scene (with all of the frazzled survivors discussing what just happened) AFTER the attack scenes are over, instead of before, so that we actually get a feel that these are the only people who survived the mayhem on the street.

16) Having Marlow as the only "talker" actually added to his role as the leader, but cut by 2/3 the amount of vampire screeching in the film.

17) Since Marlow told his followers not to make any new vampires, and since this actually seems like a logical thing for him to do (from a management standpoint), then do away with the little girl and the guy under the house.

18) Show the vampires doing door to door searches, since they have a month on their hands.

19) Give the Stranger some kind of sailor atributes, so that we don't have to wonder as much how the nocturnal vampires have been helming that supertanker around the arctic circle.

20) Do away with the Billy-killing-his-whole-family-we-never-see subplot, instead kill him off (maybe at the jail?) in an early vampire attack so that baby-face might then conceivably be in charge. (Actually, I like Hartnett but a blind man would not have picked him for this role).

21) Make it "7 Days of Night" instead so that a week is not going by at a time between scenes.

22) After grizzly adams apparently kills half the vampires with his trenching machine, have him do almost anything but crash the damn thing into a building on purpose (maybe a vampire jerks loose a fuel line or something, causing it to stall in the street).

23) Show some human prisoners being kept somewhere (the jail would be a fine place) by Marlow to use occasionally as bait and food.

24) Do away with Hartnett's asthma problem, it served no purpose. Also, his facial hair was awful. According to the DVD, this movie was filmed in about 40 days, it seems like they could have chosen a natural approach on this for he and the other males.

25) If headshots will kill the vampires, then let the characters ponder this and then have them learn what anyone knows, it's just too hard to do even with a shotgun.

26) Instead of having hartnett or someone say "we need to move" every 20 minutes to keep things moving, actually have the vampires discover one or two of the hiding places. Again, there are a bunch of them with lots of time on their hands.

27) Show at least one scene depicting what exactly the vampires are doing during their down time.

28) Get rid of the little girl subplot at the end. No way she could have lasted 29 days on her own and then just be walking down the street. Or, if we must, have her be another trap but since this is a child instead of a teen, have the characters try to rescue her anyway

29) Do almost ANYTHING different with the grand finale between Hartnett and Marlow. I mean anything!

30) The conversation between Marlow and the Stranger could have been a little longer. For that matter, almost any amount of human character development would have been an improvement.

GRADE: C+

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