My Date With a Vampire
by Flick Chick Vique
|
30 Days of Night sucks up 3 &1/2 Blood Red Vines |
Never mind that I have a love of all things ‘fangtastic’! Or the fact that I am just mere hours away from spending my Halloween in Transylvania-ha-ha. (No-really, I am!) These facts could work for a vampire movie as much as they could against. I’m a tough audience! But the trailers for 30 Days of Night looked so scary that I couldn’t resist. When I found out it would be showing at the
drive-in, with Resident Evil: Extinction as a second feature, no less, well there simply was no stopping me!
Barrow, Alaska is a small town where the sun disappears for 30 days. Isolated by 80 miles of snow and ice, the residents are easy pickin’s for a bloodthirsty band of vicious vampires that descend upon the frozen hamlet. Where they come from is not explained or necessary-although they seem to speak a guttural, Romanian sounding tongue.
Of course there is a hero. There always is. Josh Hartnett gets the job as Eben Olson, the town sheriff. Together with his gun-toting almost ex-wife Stella, played by Melissa George (Alias, Turistas), the two are all that stand between the few remaining villagers and the rampaging vampires.
The movie is based on a graphic novel (comic book) and it will not disappoint fans that come to expect a movie of equally vicious imagery. But for all it’s violence, more is left to the imagination than audiences probably even realize. Let me elaborate. The audio sweetening is so intense, you will imagine you are seeing more than you really are! Many scenes cut to reaction shots while we just ‘hear’ the rest of the brutal attack. Towards the end of the movie the camera lingers on these shots to give you the full effect. But I found the one time they did an on-screen decapitation — oh yeah, you have to chop a vampire’s head off to really get rid of the pest — the effect was so cheesy it was almost comical. For me it was like a huge speed bump for a runaway train!
Josh Harnett does a darn good job at being the outnumbered hero. Ditto for Melissa George as his estranged wife, who has the misfortune of missing the last ride out of town before the darkness hits. And David Slade does a fantastic job at directing the movie at a break-neck pace. But the real stars are the make-up and special effects folks. Their vision of vampires is bold, grotesque and horrific! Cinematographer Jo Willems is to be commended for giving 30 Days of Night an eerie, dark, grey-blue look. Shining above all are those great sound effects people. They give new meaning to ‘juicy’!
In an age of countless torture/porn horror flicks (what I call pornture!) about human monsters, I find a film that’s willing to tackle a classic monster and give it new life, very refreshing. 30 Days of Night provides lots of fun thrills and chills. I can’t think of a better low-key way to avoid the trick or treater crush than to go to on a drive-in date with a vampire-and I don’t mean moi!
|
