Finally, A Flick Horror Fans Will Appreciate

Sun Herald

Sunday November 11, 2007

Rob Lowing

30 DAYS OF NIGHT

Rated: MA

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster.

Critic's warning: Frequent violence; language.

Critic's rating: 7/10

IT'S not a genre breakthrough in the way 28 Days Later redefined zombie flicks but the new vampiric 30 Days Of Night is imaginative, edgy, visually dynamic and consistently entertaining.

Cinema buffs should check this out, just for the loving homage to famed vampire flick Nosferatu. Ditto horror fans, who will appreciate - finally! - the attempt to rescue vampire movies from being extended, stylised music videos and imitators of The Lost Boys, and return them to the grit of 1987's Near Dark.

Ultimately, though, the prime assets are Hartnett, the matinee-idol-handsome star who rather touchingly applies full throttle angst to whatever he does (even dreck such as Pearl Harbor), and audacious director David Slade, who made the brooding internet pedophile tale Hard Candy.

Slade smartly capitalises on the story's best gimmick: setting its vampire attack in Alaska's northernmost town, which for one month each winter endures perpetual night.

The movie begins on the last day when the sun shines. While stoic sheriff Eben (Hartnett) deals with a violent rambling visitor (Foster), his estranged wife Stella (George) misses the last flight out of the snowed-in town.

As night falls, all the sled dogs are brutally murdered. Then the electricity fails; locals begin disappearing. A group of strangely dressed visitors prowl the streets, led by the murderous Marlow (Huston).

One by one, the townspeople are killed - or transformed. Within days, only a small group remains, led by Eben and Stella.

There are no real surprises in the ensuing showdown but 30 Days Of Night extracts great suspense from killing off the most unexpected and/or sympathetic characters. The ticking clock approach, as the days of the month are counted off, also ratchets up tension.

The visuals are frequently stunning, thanks to shots of New Zealand locations (lonely plains and vast, ominous skies) and artfully re-created snowbound studio sets and clever computer generated effects from The Lord Of The Rings experts. But the film never loses its haunting, introspective quality, thanks to the many close-ups of characters' eyes, notably Hartnett's. (You'll see why, later).

Ironically, the film works best as a classic, cannibalistic man-hunt. Non-film buffs may laugh, not shudder, at the vampires' appearance (think: pointy-fanged with evil-goblin features a la Rings's Gollum).

The creatures' high-pitched shrieks reduced some viewers at one preview to giggles and do drag the flick back to B-grade movie territory, although at the top end.

Still, as he proved in The Proposition, no one is more menacing in a long black coat than Huston. He's charismatic enough to stop 30 Days Of Night, which is based on a graphic novel, from becoming too cartoon-like. Australian star George is just getting better in her Hollywood support roles: her mixture of sexiness and sweetness adds crucial poignancy to the nicely underplayed Eben-Stella plot. This film has more pathos than you expect from a vampire flick. And that's a great title.

© 2007 Sun Herald

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