30 Days Of Night (Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: B+ Extras: D Film: D
The bad
Horror films continue with one that should have worked, but becomes so bad that
you will laugh it off the screen if you can see past its concept that was far
better in the book and has already been seen in recent releases that beat this
film to the punch.
In the
hands of Director David Slade, even with Sam Raimi producing, this film of the
Steve Niles (who somehow co-wrote the screenplay) and Ben Temple Smith’s 30 Days Of Night. The idea, rendered a gimmick here, is that it
will be dark for a month since the town is an icebound,
near-a-pole-of-the-earth location that will allow vampires to reign without
fear of vaporization by the sun. Timur
Bekmambetov’s Russian Watch
films (due to be a trilogy soon) try this, but add Fantasy elements with other
ideas that take it strictly out of the Vampire realm. You would think a film that dumped all but
the horror could work.
Josh
Hartnett plays yet another “innocent unassuming grunt” that is getting very
tired as he just happens to be a Sheriff this time (very young for one at that)
in a town that happens to be on its way to a bad event. He is joined by a young lady (Melissa George
of The Limey, Dark City and that Alias
show) and the terror wills soon being.
Unfortunately
for the audience, that terror will be a bad script and very bad digital effects
that render the vampires so laughable that you think talking babies might soon
show up and start telling jokes or dancing.
The lack of good make-up effects in addition to any such good work
negated by the digital plastering (on and off the faces of the army of
bloodsuckers) causes endless problems where they look more like they need a
bath, shave and haircut to look the part.
Additionally, the digital is so plain that it is hard to tell whether
they are zombies or vampires until they show their teeth, but liberties are
even taken on that!
The
Nosferatu model is used, but in vain (or is that vein) and the result is a
laughable mess that only has sadism to resort to when the vampires use victims
to pretend they are alone to lure other humans out in the open to help, only to
be mangled by the gang. The underrated
actor Ben Foster also surfaces, but is badly used and the windup is a film that
wants to be the next Sin City or 300, but looks more like a TV movie
with more money than it knows what to do with.
With zero suspense, 30 Days Of
Night is everything we have seen before and done with no imagination,
energy or ambition, finding no interesting ways to spend 113 minutes.
Read the
book, don’t get the movie!
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is yet another tired, digitally
color-denatured mess that looks more like a dated videogame or cheap video
production than a Horror film or graphic novel, the latter of which it seeks to
imitate. Director of Photography Jo
Willems in Super 35mm overplays his hand and the overdone digital effects only
make things worse. Though there is some
clarity, detail ands depth here you would never find on DVD or lower, it is
still monotonous. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1
mix is mixed, with more gimmickry than good, with an inconsistent soundfield
that shows off too much, trying to distract from how bad the script is and that
is the best this disc can offer.
Extras
include eight tired behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, an audio
commentary by Hartnett, Miss George and Producer Rob Tapert and the Blu-ray
exclusive comparison of the film to the book.
If you reads the book, you realize how watered down this version
is. Too bad for fans of the book and
vampire horror in general, but if you want to see this kind of story done
better on film, try the 2006 Swedish-produced Frostbitten, which you can read
more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5992/Frostbitten+(2006/Genius/Vampires/S
Though it
has its own problems, it works much better than this wreck!
- Nicholas Sheffo
