The Diary of Anne Frankenstein
by James Roland
It’s good to see that there’s still life in the horror genre, even if it is undead.
30 Days of Night marks the return of the vampire film as legitimate horror, resurrecting it from the grave of direct-to-video campiness. While it bears some of the weaknesses of other horror films — the opening twenty minutes are rife with lame, “made you jump with loud noises” scares — the film settles down into deeper, thoughtful, but no less hardcore terror.
The vampires arrive in Barrow, Alaska, on the eve of a thirty-day stretch of darkness. No longer confined during the sunlight hours, they descend on the town with unrestricted fury, slaughtering hundreds in one of the bloodiest, scariest, most amazingly filmed scenes in horror history.
Here the film shifts, bends genres, and separates itself from other horror films. This is a survival picture. With super strength, invulnerability, and brutal intelligence, these are not classic Hollywood vampires; there are no crosses, garlic, or holy water to use as weapons. There is never any hope that driving a wooden stake through the heart of Marlow will win the day. The few human survivors are forced to hide in attics and under houses, fighting the bitter cold and starvation, as well as the monsters that patrol the streets like Nazi regiments.
Taking a note from Richard Matheson, who began the modern demystification of vampire lore with his groundbreaking story I Am Legend, the vampires of 30 Days of Night are lean, mean pinnacles of evolution. A pack of wolves, brutal, violent, uncaring.
Danny Huston leads the pack as the head vampire, Marlow. The vampires speak in their own language that sounds vaguely Slavic, but only Marlow receives the honor of subtitles, quipping poetic as he slices and disembowels. With their perfect make-up and chilling, canine-like choreography, the vampires are more fully developed and interesting than any of the human victims. They have black eyes, white skin, and sharp ridges of teeth like a shark. They are the essence of nihilism, the absence of God and hope personified with pale, blood-spattered skin.
The film’s strength lies in this dynamic. Unlike other vampire films that offer biological explanations for vampirism, such as Underworld and Blade, this film does not offer heavy-handed atheist theology. This is a film about the atrocities of humanity, not God.
Unfortunately, despite the original premise and rich cinematography, this film suffers on many levels. The love story between the town sheriff (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife (Melissa George) is trite and underdeveloped. Apparently a deep emotional rift can be patched forever with a bloody vampire attack and hokey dialog.
The film was written by three men who worked in sequence, not in direct collaboration. This adds an uneven quality to the story. Dialog shared by the vampires is minimalist and powerful while dialog between lovers is weighty and clichéd. The human survivors spend much of the film making wise, calculated decisions, only to turn around a few scenes later and revert to the stupid, stock characters of schlock horror. The most drastic example of this is the sheriff, who takes it upon himself to lead and protect the small band of survivors. After hiding for over a week they need food desperately, and his only plan is to run madly down the street, waving an axe and screaming, “hey hey!” at the top of his lungs so the other survivors can sneak away. Not only is this a bad and obvious plan that the vampires figure out instantly, it should also secure the death of the strongest and smartest male member of the group, drastically reducing their chances of survival.
This might seem like too much logic to expect from a horror film, but considering the entire premise revolves around a group of people that choose to survive in the brutal tundra, the audience ought to demand much more from this screenplay than other mindless horror flicks.
Despite its flaws, which are easily explained by the Hollywood pressures to conform to its genre, 30 Days of Night stands out among its peers. Hopefully, it marks a turning point for the horror world and teaches a lesson to big-name producers: Smart is scary.
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