Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 02/26/2008 Run time: 113 minutes Rating: R

David (Hard Candy) Slade directs this nerve-jangling adaptation of the popular graphic novel series about a mob of vampires that overruns a remote Alaskan town in the grip of 30 Days of Night. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George are the film's de facto heroes (he's the stoic town sheriff and she's his estranged fire-marshal wife) but the picture's real MVP is Slade's camera (along with cinematographer Jo Willems), which careens across the town's snowy landscape to detail the vampires' horrific assault on its inhabitants, which are quickly pared down to a hardy few. The script, co-written by the source material's creator, Steve Niles, along with Pirates of the Caribbean's Stuart Beattie and Hard Candy's Brian Nelson), proudly wears its influences on its crimson-stained sleeve (Bram Stoker's Dracula, natch, but also Salem's Lot, Night of the Living Dead, and John Carpenter's version of The Thing) and boils down the graphic novels to a series of tense and extremely bloody standoffs between Harnett and George's band of survivors and the vaguely Slavic and ferocious bloodsuckers led by Marlow (a feral and frightening Danny Huston). And if the characters seem stock and the finale begs suspension of disbelief, the set pieces leading up to it are sufficiently supercharged with suspense and violence to please most horror fans. Standouts in the supporting cast are Ben Foster as the film's Renfield figure and Mark Boone Junior; the disturbing score by Brian Reitzell also merits a mention. --Paul Gaita

Stills from 30 Days of Night (click for larger image)

Beyond 30 Days of Night

On Widescreen DVD

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WOW! Was I ever surprised.

Two years after this film's release I finally 'gave-in' and watched 30 Days of Night.

Why so long?

Josh Hartnett.

So, take it from me, if there's anything stopping you from watching this non-stop, adrenalin inducing, vampire (dare I say western/frontier) movie -- you are doing yourself a disservice.

Entertainment at it's (close to) best. Not to mention great SFX and Kill scenes.

The seller Josh Hartnett sold me this DVD movie and I'm very happy with it. I received it within a week.

thank You,
Phyllis

This kind of movie isn't for those with a weak stomach.
In Alaska during winter the sun goes down:
in this case the strange thing is that someone wants to make
use of the dark this year.
Will any of the residents of Barrow, the pipeline town survive?
The small town sheriff and his wife are the main human characters
and there is a very strange cast of vampires...
The acting and script are pretty good for a scare film.

This is a pretty scary movie to me. I can't even discribe the feeling I had in my spine. It was the feeling like you're fixing to feel cold or something. I don't know. It didn't feel like chills. Anyway, this movie was pretty scary when I first saw it. I tried to watch it again, and I stopped it... and I kind of had that feeling in my spine again. Those vampires might be out there... They are very fast and you'll never know when they'll show up.

I've been hearing how bad this movie was from it's first day in the box office and while I agree, it is a bad movie, I had a lot of fun along the way. If I had to sit through a reading of the script I'd probably want shoot myself but the acting was sufficient to keep engaged and while never scary it did manage to keep me tense at a few points. The action was pretty decent, I thought they handled the speed of the vampires pretty well at a few points and the art design was pretty creative as well.

I think the movie spiraled out of control when the humans started fighting back, the vampires seemed to completely lose their edge, especially as they slowed down far enough for Eben to sever off their heads. Then the movie turned to Underworld and Josh had to power up in an unfifilling twist (to be generous) and movie fell apart leaving me wishing that they'd just left the last fifteen minutes out altogether.

30 Days of Night was a fun ride--but you're going to want to leave your inner critic at the door.