Product Description

Columbia Pictures 30 Days Of Night (Blu-ray)
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, thirtydays 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2461 in DVD
• Brand: Columbia Pictures
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Color, Digital Sound, DTS Surround Sound, THX, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Thai
• Dubbed in: French, Portuguese, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 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 Widescreen DVD

Audio CD

Hardcover Book

Customer Reviews

Skip it ...
Before I saw '30 Days ...' I was really excited for it when I learned that it was going to be directed by David Slade. I'd previously seen the film 'Hard Candy' (with a stellar Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson) and was looking forward to seeing what an intelligent director such as himself would do with a vampire movie. I always thought it was encouraging to see film-makers try and branch out and do something different.

At its core, the general concept for the film is also one that I found interesting. Basically a brood of vampires descend on a northern Alaskan where, in the winter, night lasts a month. There hasn't been a really good vampire film in awhile and I thought '30 Days ...' had the set-up to be pretty good.

I was horribly disappointed that the film fails on almost every level.

For all the talent that's involved here, I was surprised that this was such a "stupid" film. Unfortunately, that disappointment extends even down to the concept, which I was originally so excited about. In hindsight, given the thick of this information age we live in (where telecommunications, cell phones, email, text messages, etc dominate our lives) I could never really buy into the idea that this town was just completely cut off from the outside world. Looking back, if it were up to me (and it's not) I'd have made the suggestion that this would work better as a period piece. Setting everything in the 1800's or even the early 1900's, for example, would make it easier to buy into the idea that the town was completely isolated for the winter.

The script is a total disaster from front to back. In my opinion, more then anything else, for the concept that was laid out to be successful, '30 Days ...' had to accomplish just three tasks.

1. Especially in light of the title, you absolutely HAD TO SEE a believable passage of one month's time.

2. You had to be able to get to know the characters that were trapped and left as survivors.

3. To later appreciate the cat-and-mouse game being played between the vampires and the towns-people, you HAD to have a general idea of how the town was laid out.

That lack of an understanding of the geography of the town is frustrating because we never seen to have any clear idea of how difficult it would be to get from one point to another. When the survivors are talking about changing locations, are they talking about a point that's right next door, or completely across town? I would have fixed this with a single-shot pan with the camera (a la the classic opening of 'Touch of Evil') in the beginning of the film to let the viewer know what's where. Maybe pass over the town in a helicopter in the opening ...

Worse though, is the complete lack of any sense of time. This would be a difficult hurdle to jump over for this film, since there isn't any rising or setting of the sun. Everything in the movie feels like it was taking place over a couple of hours though, not days. For example, there never seems to be a concern over supplies or food, there's surprisingly little tension in the group, and outside of a half-arsed looking beard here or there, nobody looks as if they hadn't shaved, showered or changed their clothes. Without a genuine sense of the passage of time, it takes a mountain of the tension and sense of dread off the situation these characters are facing.

Speaking of characters, outside of Melissa George and Josh Hartnett, there's virtually zero character development here at all. I can tell you, with absolute honesty, that (not including the above) I can't recall the name of one person that lived in Barrow. This again, takes any of the emotional impact off a scene such as the vampire siege. If we don't know who the characters are that are being killed, how much do we really care?

Although they're certainly not done any favors with the script, the performances here are all bland at best and awful at worst. The only exception, for me, was the Renfield-like harbinger that comes to the town. Even his character doesn't make any sense though. If your film's vampires are going to be portrayed as a feral group of animals, that's fine. But why then, would anyone aspire to join them? These aren't the romantic Bram Stoker-type vamps, these are what amounts to a pack of wild dogs.

I'm sorry to say that nobody decided to rise to the occasion on this one. Although it's well-shot (the Blu-Ray version looks amazing), the whole film's a complete mess. It gets my lowest possible recommendation.

a mediocre vampire movie
In case you didn't know, in some parts of Alaska, there comes a time when it's dark, no sun, for about a month.

In *30 Days of Night*, a small isolated town prepares itself for 30 days of night. Once the phenomenon starts, a band of vampires starts to attack the citizens. An estranged couple, a sheriff and a fire marshal, reunite and round up a group of survivors. The survivors have to hide from building to building every so often to escape the fangs of the vampires...until the sun comes back.

That's pretty much it. The gore factor is ok. There's hardly any scare factor. Simple story with simple characters.

A good film...
I have never been much for horror movies or movies with a lot of gore in them, but when i first read the 30 Days of Night novel, not the graphic novel, I was hooked. It was a great book and I desperately wanted to see the movie.
So I rented the movie and i really liked it. It wasn't as gorey as I thought it would be ( and I don't know what other people think about the gore, but i thought they used a good amount of it...it wasn't really overpowering the viewer with blood and flying body parts, like blood squirting out of someones arm like a garden hose)
There were a few decapitation scenes that were a bit creepy, but didn't really bother me.The movie did have a good plot up until the end. The climax was merely a small fight between the lead vampire and the head sheriff, but I'll try not to spoil too much of the film. overall I think that this movie is worth a watch, and before you buy it...I would recomend renting it at your nearest video store before buying it, and depending on how much you liked the film, make your move after that.

Hope this reveiw was helpful!