Product Description

Josh Harnett (Black Dahlia Pearl Harbor) crosses over to the dark side in this bone-chilling adaptation of the cult-hit graphic novel brought to the screen in all its demonic glory. In a small Alaskan town thirty days of night is a natural phenomenon. Very few outsiders visit until a band of bloodthirsty deathly pale vampires mark their arrival by savagely attacking sled dogs. But soon they find there are much more satisfying thirst-quenchers about: human beings. One by one the townspeople succumb to a living nightmare but a small group survives at least for now. The vampires use the dark to their advantage and surviving this cold hell is a game of cat and mouse and screams.System Requirements:Run Time: 113 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR/PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER Rating: R UPC: 043396196155 Manufacturer No: 19615

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #752 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.25 pounds
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com
David (Hard Candy) Slade directs this nerve-jangling adaptation of the popular graphic novel series about a mob of vampires that overruns a remote Alaskan town in the grip of 30 Days of Night. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George are the film's de facto heroes (he's the stoic town sheriff and she's his estranged fire-marshal wife) but the picture's real MVP is Slade's camera (along with cinematographer Jo Willems), which careens across the town's snowy landscape to detail the vampires' horrific assault on its inhabitants, which are quickly pared down to a hardy few. The script, co-written by the source material's creator, Steve Niles, along with Pirates of the Caribbean's Stuart Beattie and Hard Candy's Brian Nelson), proudly wears its influences on its crimson-stained sleeve (Bram Stoker's Dracula, natch, but also Salem's Lot, Night of the Living Dead, and John Carpenter's version of The Thing) and boils down the graphic novels to a series of tense and extremely bloody standoffs between Harnett and George's band of survivors and the vaguely Slavic and ferocious bloodsuckers led by Marlow (a feral and frightening Danny Huston). And if the characters seem stock and the finale begs suspension of disbelief, the set pieces leading up to it are sufficiently supercharged with suspense and violence to please most horror fans. Standouts in the supporting cast are Ben Foster as the film's Renfield figure and Mark Boone Junior; the disturbing score by Brian Reitzell also merits a mention. --Paul Gaita

Stills from 30 Days of Night (click for larger image)

Beyond 30 Days of Night

On Blu-ray

Audio CD

Hardcover Book

On the DVD
For a film steeped in dark atmosphere and darker violence, the supplemental features for 30 Days of Night have a surprisingly light-hearted tone, but still manage to provide a wealth of information about the picture's challenging production. Commentary by stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George with producer Rob Tapert establishes the relaxed and friendly feel of the extras with amusing and observant stories about the New Zealand locations and scenes that nearly missed inclusion in the final cut; the cast and crew also cut up in eight short featurettes that address everything from the gruesome special effects (courtesy Weta Digital) to casting and stunts, as well as the effects of 33 consecutive night shoots on director David Slade (who mugs cheerfully for the documentary camera) and his crew. An episode of the 2006 anime series Blood + (which deals with vampire-like creatures as fierce as Marlow's crew from 30 Days) is also included, though this is replaced on the Blu-Ray edition by a featurette that compares the feature's visual design to panels from its graphic novel source material. Trailers for other Sony and Ghost House films, including both Grudge movies, round out the special features. -- Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews

For Horror Fans Only
The reviews of this film tend to be either a four star "nearly perfect" to a one star "superficial and cheesy gorefest." I would agree with both viewpoints. It all depends on what type of movie you're looking for. Fans of cheesy horror flicks will not be disappointed, in my opinion. More discriminating moviegoers will probably walk away rolling their eyes.

The movie is pretty standard as far as horror films go: The characters are paper-thin, and all-star performances by Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, and Ben Foster can't fix the rote dialogue that they have to work with. It doesn't matter, though. The camera-work and sets are lush and beautiful, even more so when the blood starts spraying. The score is creepy as well, and best enjoyed in a decent home theatre system.

At the 90 minute mark, the movie takes its time and limps across the finish line towards its conclusion at just under two hours. It could have benefited from a little pruning, but it's still a fun little horror film.

Ground Breaking Directing
The vampire genre can provide for some great literature or some truly awful films. The humans vs. vampires or zombies genre has been beaten to death. Until now! '30 Days of Night' provides for a breathtaking amount of visually terrifying life and death suspense.

Based on the graphic novel of the same title '30 Days of Night' takes place entirely in an Alaskan frontier town which annually experiences 30 days without the sun. This reduces the population to just over 150. This gives a gang of Eastern European vampires 30 days to openly drink the town dry.

The film is brilliant in the way it builds tension. First off the setting of a dark ghost town covered in snow could not be more frightening. Light is scarce and shadows everywhere give the villains plenty of places to lurk. Anything could pop out over everywhere. The DVD reveals the set was in fact a New Zealand equestrian center.

Much like `Die Hard 2' the film builds the fear of total inescapable chaos slowly with tragic events building on each other. It's not just "Hello we're here we're the vampires." No, the fear comes from not knowing what is coming. Hartnett and his one deputy don't realize what is happening until it is too late. The fear comes slowly as transportation and communications are eliminated by the mysterious drifter. He's creepy and we shudder to wonder where he came from as the town is surrounded by ice.

The vampires themselves are truly horrifying as they do not look like Anne Rice's disco queens or `Buffy's' rubber masked punks. No, these vampires are Nosferatu except worse. Their faces are white and everything else, eyes, hair, and clothing is black. The only color being the blood on their teeth adds to the fear. Much like the cast of `Name of the Rose' they scrounged Europe for the scariest looking before makeup actors they could find. Danny Huston is an unforgettable villain.

The vampires are so inhuman they even speak their own vampire language far scarier than `Blade.' Although most of the time they communicate with chilling sketches. Their movement is also supernatural and inhuman.

Most effective of all the vampires are hard to kill. We truly fear for our band of heroes. How can humans hope to fight these things? This adds tremendously to the plot as we cannot imagine what will happen. Don't the good guys have to win? Or at least take the bad guys with them? Anything is possible.

While we do get a couple of vampires being bisected by John Deere, incinerated by a UV light, caught in a meat grinder, and a little girl decapitated by a fire ax, the film does not disappoint in its premise that a band of mortals is no match for these vampires. This is summed up perfectly with the classic line, "Just because something worked on Bela Lugosi doesn't mean it will work on these guys."

We do not suffer the token clips of chair legs being carved into stakes, crucifixes being taken down from walls, or Bibles being used to make holy water.

David Slade has truly created a visual masterpiece that like a horror film should, uses visuals and sounds to frighten. Not just entertain.

The only downside is that Josh Hartnett as always still suffers from Down syndrome. "Tell me about the vampires George."

Just a couple Natives in Barrow?
I read a synopsis of the movie plot some weeks before I saw the movie. I immediately laughed at the movie as silly, and was not disappointed upon watching it.

What made me laugh is when the synopsis stated that the Natives migrated South for the winter. Being an Alaska Native myself, I was incredulous at the silly plot gimmick. I mean really. Does the writer think of the Natives as if they were like the caribou that migrate in winter? I am still laughing about that.

There were other silly things in the movie that made it obvious that no one connected with the move ever set foot in Alaska, let alone Barrow. My home town is a couple hundred miles Southwest of Barrow, so I know Alaska weather, and am familiar at least with pictures of Barrow. I also have relatives from there.

They had the temperature at 10 below 0 in December, heh. Try 40 below with 40 knot winds at that time of year. Skin would freeze in seconds. The vampires must have had Prestone for blood. The movie town was also tiny compared to the real thing.

I realize most people won't care, but couldn't we at least not have factual and racist misinformation while we make a movie? It would have taken just a few minutes research to get the facts right. Otherwise, the action was mostly scary and gruesome, if predictable.