30 Days Of Night (2007)

(In theaters, October 2007) There should be awards for high-concept premises, because this film would definitely qualify for a nomination: How about vampires invading a town so far north that the winter night lasts thirty days? Huh, huh, how about that? Unfortunately, there have been a lot of vampire movies out there in the past few years, and if a neat premise is a good way to distinguish any new film from the pack, it’s not necessarily a guarantee of quality. 30 Days Of Night may pass the grade as a decent vampire film (it’s certainly better than, oh, The Forsaken), but there are a number of logical and cinematographic problems that undercut everything good about it. If nearly everyone will remember the long continuous aerial shot of a main street riddled with vampires and their victims, most will also question the idiocy of a bunch of vampires taking over a town like this without much by way of resource conservation. The director has a few other problems of his own: whether the script was botched or pieces were left on the editing floor, there are numerous times during this film where things don’t quite make sense or flow from one scene to another. It gives a disjointed feel to the film that the now-boring “rage cam” action sequences don’t exactly improve. It all drives an intriguing premise into a dull film that won’t register too long on the pop consciousness, even for the vampire fans.