30 Days of Night

Tusky

I saw this at the Horrorthon last night at the IFI and I absolutely LOVED it. One of the best horror movies I have seen in a long time. The guy introduced it as 'The Thing with vampires' which got me excited as its one of my favorite movies. The setting and the tension are definitely similar to The Thing but thats where the similarities end. Actually thats not true, I also thought the opening shot was quite similar to The Thing and may have been an intended nod.

The basic premise is excellent. A town that sees not sunlight for a 30 day period each year and is largely cut off from the rest of the world. Most people head south, but some remain. The town gets attacked by vampires and the townspeople struggle to survive for the 30 days of night.

Expect a very tense, violent, gory, scary and visually impressive horror movie. The vampires themselves are the best I have seen, hands down. They are disgusting, vicious, evil creatures with absolutely no remorse or conscience about what they are doing.

The film is based on a graphic novel and it is evident throughout in the story and the visuals in a similar, although not as dramatic way as Sin City & 300. For this reason I think it may get criticized by certain people (as Sin City & 300 did) for being overly violent, over the top and not as tight storyline wise as it may have been if it didn't have to follow the comic.

If you wanted to, you could easily poke holes in the storyline. For example, it doesn't feel like its set over a month. It feels like everything happens in one or two nights. There are other criticisms in that vain, however, people who pick holes in the storyline of comic book movies annoy me.

There are tonnes of great set pieces and some disgustingly violent fights with the vampires.

The vampire kid, the guy in that machinery vehicle, the vampire tangled in the swing, the many decapitations...etc

. Now that I think of it, the film itself is fairly action packed. I have a feeling there will be people who will give out about the ending but I really liked it. All I will say is that its over the top & very 'comic book'...in a good way.

If you like gory horror movies and can suspend your disbelief in regards to loose ends with the storyline, you will love this.

5/5

Creature

Excellent, I can't wait to see this now. I couldn't get tickets to the horrorthon showing but I'll definitely catch it when it opens in cinemas.

senordingdong

What I don't get is why these people don't just move?

Thundercracker

senordingdong wrote: »

What I don't get is why these people don't just move?

Well, believe it or believe it not, some people see it as rather un-nationalistic to simply get up and walk away when an invading force comes to take away their homes and their land....the comic simply has an undertone of Germany invading Poland during WW2, except theyve replaced the SS with Vampires and the polish pesants with die hard americans who believe in abortions, hate the idea of same sex marriage, and vote republican so they can breathe in the fumes from their SUVs

Seriously though, I love the idea of this movie, cant wait to see it!

senordingdong

Thundercracker wrote: »

Well, believe it or believe it not, some people see it as rather un-nationalistic to simply get up and walk away when an invading force comes to take away their homes and their land....the comic simply has an undertone of Germany invading Poland during WW2, except theyve replaced the SS with Vampires and the polish pesants with die hard americans who believe in abortions, hate the idea of same sex marriage, and vote republican so they can breathe in the fumes from their SUVs

Seriously though, I love the idea of this movie, cant wait to see it!

No...I'm saying if vampires pop up ever od winter and eat everybody....why stay?
And on that note...why would the vampires eat everyone and torch the village?
That's pretty dumb on their part.

djkeogh

There's a line at the start where the vampires are asking themselves why they haven't come here before. This is is the first time so no doubt what survivors there are will move after the events of the film but they had no reason to move prior to that.

Necronomicon

I'm so freaking excited about this movie, I cannot wait.

Tusky

senordingdong wrote: »

No...I'm saying if vampires pop up ever od winter and eat everybody....why stay?
And on that note...why would the vampires eat everyone and torch the village?
That's pretty dumb on their part.

How about you go see it and find out before criticizing it ? This is the first time the vampites have showed up. It has never happened before. In regards to your second question, its a slight spoiler.

They torch the village to make it look like a freak accident so they can attack the next village south, next year.

.

I cant wait to see it again.

qwertplaywert

Bit Disapointed no preview tonight in IMC Dundalk.....

senordingdong

Tusky wrote: »

How about you go see it and find out before criticizing it ? This is the first time the vampites have showed up. It has never happened before. In regards to your second question, its a slight spoiler.

They torch the village to make it look like a freak accident so they can attack the next village south, next year.

.

I cant wait to see it again.

Those scenes were shown in the trailer so I wouldn't say it's a spoiler.

niallon

Saw this tonight as Saw IV was sold out. Eh, disappointing. Probably didn't help that I had just read the Empire review putting it up as "the best treatment of the vampire lore since Near Dark", ridiculously innacurate! Don't get me wrong, it was quite enjoyable but, and I know this probably has a lot to do with following the comic faithfully, it was too damn long! Not even that, what was shown was the opposite of what you want in a vampire flick! I know they were trying for a vampire flick with feeling and they focus mainly on the humans to show the emotional strain etc. but I mean there was so much backstory to the vamps dying to be revealed that we never got, they were simply there to chomp down. And the editing must have been done by someone with serious case of the jitters, some scenes, scenes that shouldn't have been, were blink and you'll miss quick! In all it was a step above all the shlock released lately but still contained an element of disappointment at an oppurtunity clearly missed. Ah well, plenty more installments in the comics series to be filmed, maybe we'll get at least one more and they'll do it right!

Necronomicon

senordingdong wrote: »

Those scenes were shown in the trailer so I wouldn't say it's a spoiler.

Well, you don't get this from the trailer, so go ahead if you're that keen:

They torch the village on the last night of darkness. They don't want the last group of survivors escaping and telling their tale, they don't want their existence known, so they torch the village to a) kill the last few survivors and b) to make it look like a freak accident

Excellent, excellent, excellent movie. So faithful to the graphic novels. Apart from one or two negligable changes the vampires are **** scary, the atmosphere is spot on. Terrific.

Fysh

I saw this last night and thought it was enjoyable but to a certain extent unremarkable. For such a high-concept film it doesn't have the kind of complexity or depth that you might expect; I don't particularly feel the need to watch it again as I don't think it would reward a repeat viewing.

Most of the flaws in the film are down to the original storyline and plot structure, and they're present in the original comic, so I can forgive them. There were a couple of things that got me (lighting being overall too bright, or the mini-car-ad product placement sequences) that were specific to the film, but mostly it was ok.

It's worth a watch as it does bring an interesting idea to the table, but I don't know that it'll be notable in the long-term, especially not given that there's already one film out there that deals with the same basic premise, and the premise could be the basis for a much more cohesive story given the right writer.

senordingdong

Necromomicon wrote: »

Well, you don't get this from the trailer, so go ahead if you're that keen:

They torch the village on the last night of darkness. They don't want the last group of survivors escaping and telling their tale, they don't want their existence known, so they torch the village to a) kill the last few survivors and b) to make it look like a freak accident

Excellent, excellent, excellent movie. So faithful to the graphic novels. Apart from one or two negligable changes the vampires are **** scary, the atmosphere is spot on. Terrific.

What are the changes?

Necronomicon

senordingdong wrote: »

What are the changes?

Well, Ben Foster's character 'The Stranger' who came to the village was a vampire himself. When he was jailed, he ripped the cell doors off their hinges and got out. Also, I'm not 100% on this because it's been a good while since I read it, but (spoiler-tastic if you haven't seen it and plan to)

I think it might have been his blood that Eben used to turn himself into a vampire

.
Aside from that, I don't remember Eben having a little brother. Also, in the comics, the vampires that travel to Barrow are a bit of a rogue faction, a high-up vampire turns up at the end of the graphic novel and starts handing out ass-kickings because they were raising the public profile of vampires.

In the movie, he was the leader of the group itself (the guy Eben put his fist through at the end)

But as I said, nothing major at all.

senordingdong

I finally saw it nad have to say I found dissapointing and very stupid at some parts.

Thundercracker

senordingdong wrote: »

I finally saw it nad have to say I found dissapointing and very stupid at some parts.

Ive made my comments felt in the other thread, but I support your comments here too

spooky donkey

I have to say i did like this. I liked that it was a departure from the uasual forumla of a vampire killing one person at a time and rather went in for the big masacare, LA riots style. I cant think of any other vamp film that did that. Big thumbs up from me.
Also people here were asking why were those people living there, for the Oil pieline of cource, where there is oil there is killing and death it seems.