10. 30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night was a pleasant surprise. Sure the trailers looked decent, but I was totally expecting to walk into the theater, laugh at some poor special effects and then walk out forgetting that I even saw it. Not the case at all. 30 Days of Night has since become one of my all time favorite horror flicks, not because it's really an A+ film, because it's not, but because of the straight up brutality of it.

Eben (Josh Hartnett) is the Sheriff in the small Alaskan village of Barrow, investigating some strange findings on the town's last day of sun light for 30 days. As the sun starts to dip and the majority of the locals turn tail, a stranger comes into town on foot out of the frozen tundra surrounding Barrow, but he's not alone. When the last rays of light disappear below the horizon, vampires invade the town killing all but a small group of survivors led by Eben and his fire marshal wife, Stella. Forced to hide Anne Frank style for the duration of the darkness, Eben and his group of miscreants huddle in an attic while the vampires hunt tirelessly for the group, sending human bait into the streets in hopes of flushing out the last of the survivors.

This movie can be described in one word... fucking BRUTAL! The movie is a hardcore R, but no way did I expect to see just as much gore and outright unabashed brutality as I got out of 30 Days of Night. These vampires really need to be referred to as something else. Yes, they drink blood and burn in the sun, but these are not vampires who are looking to make friends and coexist with humans. Nope, these vampires want nothing more to tear you the fuck apart, leaving themselves with a fashionable beard of you-juice. Biting necks is child's play to these guys, and their mouthful of pointed teeth make it clear that they are not here to just poke a few holes in you and sip leisurely while they watch Jeopardy.

But the brutality is not limited to just the out of towners. The survivors make a valiant attempt to take a few of these fuckers down and actually succeed a few times. And I'm not talking like, "Oh we'll stab them in the heart with stake, no big deal." No, I'm talking, "Let's fucking straight up decapitate these assholes with an ax." And that happens, lots and lots of times, and the filmmakers make no attempt to hide it off camera or film it at angles that hide the gore factor. With as many ax decapitations that happen you would think you would get sick of it. NOPE! Each one is more brutal than the last leading up to the final one which shows off the movie's outstanding special effects better than any of the others.

So if that's what you're looking for in a horror movie, 30 Days of Night is for you, but if you are looking for a deep, well acted story, kindly move along because we have no room for you here. The movie is WROUGHT with straight up awful dialogue and poorly developed stories between the survivors which unfortunately does take away from the film's fun factor, but not so much that you can't enjoy the rest of the awesome that's going on.

So basically the best way to enjoy 30 Days of Night is to just forget about the script and accept it for what it is. Pure, unadulterated gore.

Comments

[jspg71]

Terrific one . . .