30 Days of Night

Review

Are vampires a healthy or unhealthy fantasy? I go back and forth but was eager to see 30 Days of Night, based on a graphic novel about bloodsuckers (or, more precisely, throat-rippers) that arrive in Barrow, the northernmost Alaskan town, after its last sunset for a month. Not to get all Hannibal Lecter, but there’s something about blood glowing black on white snow in the moonlight … The director is David Slade, who made the amusingly perverse two-character pedophile psychodrama Hard Candy, and who works here mostly in fast, tight close-ups broken by showers of gore. The vampires are big Slavic rats that howl and shriek and tear out jugulars with their long talons. I like my vampires less feral, but Danny Huston is screamingly funny as the alternately finicky and savage Head Ghoul—he’s like something spewed forth from the bowels of the Politburo. The problem is structural. After the invasion, we’re marooned with the dull survivors (led by Sheriff Josh Hartnett) in an attic for long stretches while the titles read “Day 17” … “Day 21” … The vampires, meanwhile, mill around doing … It’s never clear. They act like beach-house renters with lousy weather who won’t leave until 11 a.m. Saturday no matter how bored they get. Moviegoers who’ve paid $11 will probably stay in their seats for the same reason. — David Edelstein

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New York Magazine Reviews

• David Edelstein's Full Review (10/29/07)