Kevin's Watch

Just saw 30 Days of Night.
Don't want to spoil too much
5 stars for Vampire authenticity.
Personaly, I wanted more gore and blood sucking but there was plenty to go around and from the sounds in the audience too much for some.
I could have used less of the whole 'let's see who gets picked off next by leaving the hiding place' and 'if we could just make it to that safe spot across town, but we'll need some supplies first.' and more Vampire action and insight since they were so damn cool and the good guys so dull.

Spoiler

Was all that hugging necessary? Everytime someone sees another they gotta go hugging on eachother.

I mean, I know that parts of Alaska are remote and lonely but sheesh.
But three cheers for the bad guys, they were cool.

Spoiler

'Specially that rad, Transylvakian language of his and the fact that some of them look like they're related or part of the same clan, nice effect we don't often see in movies.

have you read the graphic novel? does it adhere to it?

Going to a midnight showing tonight.

Just got back.

All in all, a great movie. realistic in terms that there are no Rambo-type vampire slayers, and very little actually killing of vampires in comparison to the number or humans being killed.

Also, not overly graphic, and it's got humor in all the right spots. I think my only qualm is that there was a good deal of people being killed because they left a hiding space. But, that was realistic. I'd leave too.

But I don't go to the flicks for realism.

9/10

Saw the movie and liked it lots.

Now there are residents of Barrow, who are going out ot their way, and seem to be compelled, to tell the hoi polloi

there are no vampires in Barrow

. GEEEEEZZZZ! Sure glad you all told me otherwise, I would never have known.

File under DUUUUH!

I saw this last night. Overall I enjoyed it, but it did have some glaring flaws. Here are the good and bad points:

SPOILER WARNING

Good

--I liked the way the vampires seemed almost animal. It made vampires actually scary for the first time in many years.

--There were various nice touches, such as the occasional out-of-focus vampire dashing across a rooftop in the background of a scene.

--The ruthlessness and lack of posing on the part of the vampires made a refreshing change.

--The main character (I don't even remember his name, so bland was he) injecting himself with vampire blood; not an entirely original idea, but nicely executed, and with none of the customary Hollywood 'exception' nonsense (i.e. for some obscure, contrived reason, he's the only vampire that doesn't die in direct sunlight).

Bad

--Considering Barrow is meant to be shrouded in darkness for thirty days running, all the exterior scenes seem very well lit. I know it wouldn't be practical to have poor visibility for large chunks of the film, but to me it didn't even look like night time. At one point, I actually wondered how the vampires were wandering around in daylight, because I'd completely forgotten it was meant to be dark, largely because the 'night' looked pretty much like a somewhat overcast day.

--The death of the lead vampire. As I understand it, Main Character injected himself in order to put him on an equal footing with the enemy, so he could at least put up a decent fight. It doesn't make him more powerful than them, just their equal. So how was he able to punch right through the lead vampire's head? I can't punch through anyone's head. Yes, Main Character had superhuman strength and resilience, but so did his foe. This conclusion to the climactic confrontation just seemed silly.

--Not a major gripe, but I wasn't that keen on getting subtitles for the vampire language. Part of what I liked about these vampires was their wild, animal savagery; I was fully aware that they communicated with each other, but the fact that they spoke in a strange-sounding language of clicks and snarls made them seem like pack animals more than human-like creatures. It made them scarier. When we started getting subtitles, the vampires immediately became more human, less alien and, by extension, less frightening. I wouldn't be criticising this if the vampire's verbal exchanges had been necessary to the plot, but they didn't say anything that didn't come across in their actions.

--Lack of information. To an extent, I appreciated the mysterious nature of the vampires, but the total absence of an explanation for anything irked me somewhat. Why are they slaughtering an entire town? What do they do the rest of the time? Where do they live? Why come out and destroy Barrow now?

--The main characters were dull. This is quite a common feature of films, so I'm not going to hammer this too much, but it was still annoying.

Two hours of life-sucking.

i rather enjoyed the film. can't complain about the lighting as we needed to see the characters. having read the comic first and one novel i had the background so i wasn't bothered by that. i think it added to the misery of the townfolk because they didn't have the info. the language sounded slavic maybe?

I got a section of the three-part banner we hung in the theater. WOO!

CovenantJr wrote:Bad

--Considering Barrow is meant to be shrouded in darkness for thirty days running, all the exterior scenes seem very well lit. I know it wouldn't be practical to have poor visibility for large chunks of the film, but to me it didn't even look like night time. At one point, I actually wondered how the vampires were wandering around in daylight, because I'd completely forgotten it was meant to be dark, largely because the 'night' looked pretty much like a somewhat overcast day.

Totally agreed! The more the movie went along the more they compromised on total darkness. The first third of the movie seemed dark, but by the time the final group of humans came together, it was like stormy daytime setting... good call on that one!

CovenantJr wrote: --The death of the lead vampire. As I understand it, Main Character injected himself in order to put him on an equal footing with the enemy, so he could at least put up a decent fight. It doesn't make him more powerful than them, just their equal. So how was he able to punch right through the lead vampire's head? I can't punch through anyone's head. Yes, Main Character had superhuman strength and resilience, but so did his foe. This conclusion to the climactic confrontation just seemed silly.

Kinda a cop-out, but I guess the lead vampire provided a lot of the force by jumping at the human.

CovenantJr wrote: --Lack of information. To an extent, I appreciated the mysterious nature of the vampires, but the total absence of an explanation for anything irked me somewhat. Why are they slaughtering an entire town? What do they do the rest of the time? Where do they live? Why come out and destroy Barrow now?

I wanted to know more too!, that's why I was happy to see subtitles initially, but they were mostly useless and trite. I agree that they should have either given us way more information, or totally ditched the subtitles to keep with the mysterious, unexplainable vampire, angle.

Aside from those points, I really had fun seeing this movie. I'm sure there will be countless sequels. For better or worse.