30 Days of Night, based on the original graphical novel by Steve Niles, is a fresh but a more bloody vampire movie – unlike most of the other vampire movies. The movie is considered a horror flick rather than action movie and contains quite a lot of violence.
Josh Harnett stars as Eben Oleson, a sheriff in a small Alaskan town called Barrow. His performance was quite flawless, considered his age. Ironically, he acted in a movie called ‘40 Days and 40 Nights’, a romantic-comedy that has nothing to do with vampires. Melissa George, who plays Stella Oleson in the movie also put up a strong performance as the town’s sheriff and Eben’s wife.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The movie begins with townsfolk in Alaska packing up and evacuating the place as there will be no sun for 30 days. Though the movie is set in Alaska, the actual shooting took place in New Zealand. Stella Oleson is on her way driving to the airport when her fellow sheriff crashed into her car, making both unable to move. She calls Eben as she desperately wanting to get out of the town. When Eben knows Stella is in town but never let him know, he sends his fellow colleague, Billy to pick her up instead. As expected, Stella misses the last plane and is stranded in Alaska alongside the rest of the community.
Next, some dogs are mysteriously killed and Eben goes to investigate but to no avail.
Then, Sheriff Eben somewhat encounters a huge guy called Beau Brower (Mark Boone Junior) with his huge tractor and issues a summon to him.
A rusty and mysterious stranger is making some trouble in the bar by demanding alcohol and raw meats when Eben single-handedly manhandles him and puts him in the sheriff’s jail. Eben’s adorable wife, Stella follows him to the sheriff’s office as well. Meanwhile, the stranger speaks cryptically of an invasion by a terrifying evil but no one believes him. Eben’s grandmother and brother are staying in the sheriff’s office all the while.
Shortly, as the town goes dark, the phone lines are out as well – Eben goes to investigate the cause of the power failure, leaving Stella, his brother, Jake and his grandmother together with the stranger in the cell. As the stranger continues to provoke him, Jake throws a pen’s cover towards the stranger but misses it. The stranger then tricks Jake into believing he can break the pen cover into half and lock picks the cell. When Jake runs to grab the pen cover which is located just right in front of the cell, the stranger grabs him and tries to strangle him when a gun shot is suddenly heard. Eben has shot the stranger in the shoulder and handcuffs him before he and Stella leaves the office to do a further investigation.
At one point when Eben thinks he saw something, they stop their 4 by 4 by the roadside and Stella looks into the binocular. When she sees somewhat something terrifying, she abruptly tells her husband to get into the car and they speed away. However, the creature that Stella saw earlier runs so fast he manages to hope onto the car and tries to destroy the roof. Despite numerous gunshots by Eben, the creature is still alive and kicking, until Stella suddenly brakes – the creature falls onto the road as she runs over him to end the life of the creature.
Sheriff Eben goes back to the town to warn all the townsfolk about the ongoings and tells them to go home or gather at the diners for those who don’t have a home. As the movie proceeds, the legion of vampires has finally arrived and they ruthlessly kill the people of Alaska. These vampires are strong, though not invincible, they easily outnumber the helpless townsfolk.
When Eben returns to the sheriff’s office, he is saddened by the fact his grandmother and brother are killed by the vampires. The stranger is, however, not taken by the vampire. As Eben and Stella drives away in vain in order to escape from the vampires, their 4-wheel vehicle is somewhat lifted by several vampires led by Marlow (Danny Huston), the vampire leader and is thrown upside down. This time, Beau comes to their rescue with his powerful tractor. Stella manages to hop into the tractor follows by Eben. When Eben is in the tractor, Beau gives him a look that says “hey-thanks-for-the-summon-and-I-am-here-to-save-your-ass”.
Marlow, the leader of the vampires
Soon, Eben, Stella and Beau arrive in Carter’s house only to find his brother and a few survivors are hiding in the house.
Later on, the group chooses to hide out in a house with a hidden attic because it’s been boarded up and appears to be abandoned and when the owner left the house, the house has a board nailed onto the door. At one point, the vampires uses Kirsten Toomey, a young and beautiful woman as a bait to get Eben and the other survivors.
From the attic, the group chooses to move to a nearby mart in order to get some supplies. They only manage to walk to the mart during a heavy snow storm to avoid being seen by the vampires. Over there, they encounter a young girl who has turned into a vampire. Despite her size, the group has some trouble finishing off the girl.
After getting much of their needed supplies and staying in the mart for days, Eben knows they need to distract the vampires for the group to move on to the next location especially when the snow storm has subsided. This time, he runs into a house of whom Stella has earlier mentioned has got a very strong floodlight project. Eben manages to distract the vampires, kills Iris by flashing the floodlight onto her and at the same time, escape from the entire gang of vampires while the rest of the gang except Stella and Beau has left and manages to reach the next hideout.
Next, Beau tries to be a hero by distracting the vampires from Eben, by running his tractor over the vampires and shooting any that comes near to him. In the end, he mysteriously crashes into a house only to let us know he plans a bomb-suicide to kill as many vampires as possible. However, when the explosives are let off, the house burns into flame but none of the vampires are killed. Beau ends up destroying nobody but himself and is killed by Marlow, who later on says, “When man comes up against something he can’t destroy, he destroys himself instead.”
While Eben and the rest of the survivors are in the hideout, Stella and a little girl are hiding underneath a car. When the vampires set the entire town on fire, Eben has no choice but to inject himself with blood of Billy, who has earlier turned into a vampire. He orders his brother, Jake to use the walkie-talkie to tell Stella to run as he distracts the legion of vampires with his enhanced strength. Though he manages to kill Marlow, the leader of the vampires and save Stella, Eben is a vampire himself and will suffer the same fate as other vampires when the sun rises. Somewhat, Eben and Stella sits on the top of the mountain to watch the sunrise as Eben has promised earlier but Eben dies and turns into ashes when the sun rises.
Eben encounters the legion of vampires as a vampire himself
Though the movie is superior in many aspects, including great cinematography and great cast of acting, the movie lacks a few substance in some area. In many instances in the movie, when less popular townsfolk goes out from hiding, they always end up killed by the vampires, but Eben is barely detected by these vampires – even if they see him, he always manage to run away. Even more, Eben shows that he’s even more invulnerable than the vampires as he never get hurt, especially during his encounters with the vampires as a human. When he has turned into a vampire, he easily kills Marlow, the boss of the vampires.
From the novels, it is said the second part of the three issue mini-series sees the resurrection of Eben when Stella seeks help from a powerful vampire. So, as you can see, he’s invulnerable.
A must-watch movie.
My rating: 7 out of 10.
Popularity: 1%
