30 Days of Night [Blu-ray] [2007] [Region A] [US Import]

As vampires films go, 30 Days Of Night is an absolute banger and it's become traditional in my household to watch it every Christmas as it's set in Alaska with plenty of snow, features friends and family coming together to face adversity and has a love story.Silliness aside and as a massive fan of the horror genre, I can happily say that 30 Days of Night is one of the best vampire films I've seen and is made even more chilling by the isolated setting.The vampires are genuinely horrifying with no sparkles in sight and there's a well paced sense of mounting dread spattered with sensibly contextual action throughout the film.Heartily recommend but please be warned that there are brief scenes of animal harm early on in the film.

This 2007 vampire horror focuses on an Alaskan town as it enters into a thirty-day long polar night. When sheriff Eben Oleson locks up a troublesome stranger, unknown creatures soon attack the local telecommunications centre and power supply, keeping the town dark and cut off from the outside world. But the mounting death toll isn’t his only problem, his sheriff ex-wife, Stella, missed the last plane out and must stay the 30 days.These aren’t your lovey dovey vamps from ‘Twilight’ but old school screeching nasties with rotten teeth who want your blood, not your body. The trouble is, the first half is action packed once the story unfolds, but then settles down into an entertaining but unrealistic survival mode and your suddenly on day 7 then 18 etc! The vampires aren’t subtle with their kills either and would never pass unnoticed and wouldn’t survive long, while the survivors aren’t the quietest or cleverest at creeping about either. Between the two groups there are a lot of bizarre choices and decisions made. You may also need subtitles for the ‘stranger’ is often less than clear.Disc one loads to 5 trailers before going to main screen offering play, scene selection, set up [5.1/DTS/2.0 and subtitles on/off] and special features [an audio commentaery cast & crew]. Disc 2 is full of extras including how its all done and filmed, amounting to arond 50 minutes spread over 8 topics.With swearing, plenty of jumpy moments, many very gory, bloody and violent scenes, it makes this a very obvious 18 rating and as such is a ***** doing for Vampires what ‘Jaws’ did for swimming. Best watched on a cold night!

If you have seen as many horror films as I have you would know a good one from a bad one. 30 Days of Night is a very good one. There are so many vampire movies; beginning with the dawn of silent cinema right up to present day, so this is not an underpopulated genre by any means. The simple fact that 30 Days is as good as it is speaks volumes for the love and effort that went into making the film. To my knowledge there has never been a vampire movie made in such a unique setting, which scores the film points for originality. I concede that the progression of the characters flight from peril owes much to George Romero's 1968 Night of The Living Dead, but at least the characters do not remain in the same location. The big problem for the film makers is that their vampires are so fast and strong that no where could the protagonists go to that would provide safety. The film ends magnificently and not in the cliched Hollywood happy ending I was expecting. Talking of screen vampire cliches 30 Days is mercifully bereft of all but one of them, no religious elements or wooden stakings, no garlic no running water fear no domicile invitation no metamorphoses into bats or gas, no charming of victims. I can't think of another vamp movie where right from the get go the audience is informed that these creatures are not interested in turning their victims only killing them. The level of on-screen grizzle is highly impressive, because the carnage is metered out sparingly so as not to over saturate the audience, although by the films end no punches have been pulled. I particularly enjoyed the look of this batch of night feeders, not only menacing, but animalistically poignant, they are hungry, plain and simple, inviting the audience to feel a pang of sympathy for such a basic necessity. Think about this : If vampires existed and in such low numbers they would be an endangered species, which is what I believe the film-makers are trying to convey. How many times have we seen humans extincting other species that on the surface appear dangerous and threatening; anyone heard of a movie called Jaws and what it did for shark hunting, or tigers and lions, crocodiles and alligators, even whales and you can bet if dinosaurs still walked the earth would have been hunted to near extinction.

This is an excellent action-horror film, concerned with the locals of a small and remote town trying desperately to survive the assault of a gang of rabid vampires. The story takes place in a desolate Alaskan town in the arctic circle. For 30 days each year this town experiences total darkness, known as a 'polar night'. The locals are well prepared for most eventualities, and are stocked up with supplies while being effectively cut-off from the rest of the world. Unfortunately this particular polar night is being taken advantage of by a coven of the undead! As the sun sets, the vampires start their attack on the town. The local sheriff (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife (Melissa George) do what they can to protect the townspeople who are being fed upon by the feral super-powered vampires.The plot is simple and straightforward. It's a story of survival set in the frozen wastes of Alaska, during what seems to be perpetual darkness. If you enjoy vampires as monstrous and ferocious night stalkers then you'll probably like this film. This isn't "Twilight" or "The Vampire Diaries". There's no sexual dimension to the creatures of the night in this movie. It's a well made and well acted film, and the setting - the arctic - adds a chilling effect to the horror. Overall, I highly recommend this movie.