The creators of 30
Days of Night conceived
their story of a month
of terror in sunless
Alaska as a redefinition
of the vampire. Bored
with post-modern immortals
who talk the talk, but
don't stalk the stalk,
Night's director David
Slade and his team of
writers promised some
the most frightening
vampires ever, and for
a few shockingly intense
scenes they succeeded.
Rejecting the frills
for the feral, like
punk rockers who rebel
against the slickness
and pomp of over-produced
pop music, they've composed
a few brilliant moments
in their music of the
night from raw, slashing
chords and heart-pounding
rhythms.
Though something is
gained from this creative
tack, something is lost
as well. In turning
the vampires of 30 Days
of Night into such beastly,
bloody horrors, they've
rejected the subtlety
of the vampire's creeping
terror.
There's a shivery delight
in experiencing an elegance
in the horrific. The
original Nosferatu was
subtitled A Symphony
of Terror, and there
was a chilling grace
even in the stiff movements
of Count Orlok that
turned rigor mortis
into a dance of death.
Vampire cinema is filled
with such indelible
moments: Dracula licking
the razor in Francis
Ford Coppola's version
of Bram Stoker; Lestat
pouring blood into a
wine glass from a slashed
wrist in Interview.
The vampires of 30 Days
havn't the couth to
even wipe their blood
drenched faces, much
less display such grace
in the presence of gore.
Even a wolf will lick
its chops and groom
itself after a fresh
kill.
The point being, that
in redefining the vampire,
30 Days of Night loses
sight of not only the
essence of the vampire,
but also of our awe
in the presence of a
perfect predator.
In rebelling against
the evolution of the
vampire into something
less fearsome, the makers
of 30 Days have worked
a sort of de-evolution,
amping up the shock
value but making it
something less in the
opposite direction.
The story as told is
a faithful adaptation
of the popular graphic
novel of the same name,
in which a hoard of
blood drinking nocturnals
rampage through the
town of Barrow, Alaska
during the depths of
winter when the sun
never rises for thirty
days.
The opening scenes of
the film are most effective
at presenting the bleak,
frigid beauty of the
lifeless snowscape as
the story's characters
are introduced. Unfortunately,
the stark realism of
the daylight scenes
stand in contrast to
the sound-staged quality
of much of the film.
Most lacking is a sense
of logic to the progression
of events as a band
of determined survivors
bounce from one hiding
place to another. A
greater sense of the
simple acts of survival
(eating, sleeping, etc)
could have given the
story some much-needed
realism in its scenes
of hiding from the vampires.
Some brilliantly conceived
scenes in which the
vampires are shown displaying
their super-human strength
and several examples
of graphic gore effects
make 30 Days of Night
an often entertaining
fright film, making
its missteps all the
more unfortunate.
|
