Movie review: "30 Days of Night"

This weekend I have watched "30 Days of Night", a 2007 survival-horror about vampires. It is somewhat older movie. It got mine attention after hearing few guys in gym talking about its sequel, "30 Days of Night: Dark Days". I was interest in the original and most of them told it was a good movie. Unfortunately, I heard them talking about the ending, but that didn't stop me. Before watching it, I checked it on IMDB as usually. I found out it was directed by Sam Raimi. For some reason, I thought he is director of zombie horror movies so I expected something like that. I was mistaken in first fact (about zombie movies and Sam Raimi), but the movie was like I expected.

The movie takes place in a little town in Alaska, where every year there is a period of thirty days without the sun. While the town is preparing for the long night, strange things start to happen. Someone kills all the dogs, burn satellite phones and then a peculiar stranger is arrested for causing unrest. But, when the night starts to fall, even stranger things start to happen... The town gets infested by a gang of vampires that kill the most of people during the first few hours. Small group of people hides in an attic and thus being their fight for survival...

Main characters of the movie are local sheriff Eben and his (ex?)wife Stella. There are also few more prominent characters (Eben's younger brother Jake, his partner Billy, town grump Beau...) but Eben is clearly the center character. Characters are not exactly deep and complex persons, which is to be expected from a survival horror, but they are quite nice surprise. Plot was also good; if I didn't know the end beforehand, I would be surprised.

Best and worst points of the movie were the vampires. Best, because they clearly have some complex back-story. They have their own language, hierarchy, plans, history... And interesting is that this back-story is very cleverly only implied (well, except the language, which is evident), but with no explanation. So the viewer is left to wonder what else can there be. Of course, I checked the Wikipedia (when I am already mentioning it, donate to Wikipedia!) and found out there is a comic book miniseries that movie is based on.

And the worst part was that these vampires were totally disgusting. I am not fan of Twilight-like vampires, but these ones are totally opposite of them: shark-like teeth and dirty long fangs. Also, when they are feeding, it looks like a piranha-attack! Also, movie is full of most explicit violence. I presume that zombie-fans are quite used to this, but I am not one, so this is a minus from my side.

All in all, "30 Days of Night" was quite nice (well, nice maybe isn't the word) movie for a Saturday evening. Probably intended was fans of zombie-movies, it is still a good watch for regular viewer. Just be sure not to show it to kids.