.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

There is something about the vast snowy landscape of the north that lends to an eerie isolated type feeling. You know. The kind of feeling that sends a shiver down your spine just by envisioning the harsh yet tranquil environment. It's surprising then that more horror films haven't utilized this environmental plain more to their advantage. Outside of John Carpenter's masterful, The Thing back in 1987, I can't think of too many other thriller titles that used the backdrop of the Great White North to scare the begeezus out of us. Until Now.

Welcome to 30 Days of Night the new exceptionally entertaining Vampires-in-Alaska flick based on the graphic comic by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. The premise is brilliant. Vampires take refuge in a small Alaskan town that is plunged into darkness for 30 days every year. I don't think I need to spend valuable page space in explaining why a place without sunlight might be of interest to bloodthirsty vamps. Not only do the vampires have free reign of a sunless city, but thanks to a population of just less than 200, they have a buffet of jugulars to keep them as quenched as a connoisseur at a wine tasting convention.

The mayhem all starts when a mysterious stranger shows up in town and is arrested by local sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett - who has the acting range of William Shatner with Downs Syndrome) after making the townspeople feel a little uncomfortable with his desire for alcohol and raw meat. Uttering phrases like "That cold ain't the weather, that's death approaching", doesn't exactly lend towards a welcome wagon ceremony either. At the same time that the stranger is making himself known in town, strange things begin to occur. Well, if you call having all the sled dogs slaughtered, the power shut down and a local beheaded with his head being put on the top of a stick outside his work as being 'strange'.

These occurrences don't allow Ebsen time to reconcile with ex-Stella (Melissa George - Turistas, The Amityville Horror) who is stuck in town for a month since she was unable to get the last plane out before the sun went away. The friction and backstory between these two main characters has to wait as the townspeople are slaughtered in mass. Stella, Eben and a small group of survivors hold up in the attic of a boarded up home in an attempt to wait out the massacre. The huddle quietly in the loft as they hear screams, gunshots and fights that would make ordinary people go mad.

Not expecting to be in an attic for 30 days (well, who would?), they wait for the cover of storm to replenish water, food and medical supplies. But when they leave the safe confines of their hideaway they are thurst into a battle with a town now run by killers while other survivors join in the fight for their lives.

30 Days of Night is just plain creepy. It doesn't offer really anything new to the genre, but it sure as hell is a fun, violent ride with plenty of scares even for the most hardened of individuals. The excitement is heightened by the fact that these vampires are not your run-of-the-mill movie type bloodlusters. These fang-feasters are fast moving mofo's that can jump, run and fight like they have been sneaking into Barry Bonds' locker and stealing his BALCO pills. If Peter Parker was a resident of the town, his Spidy sense would have his head exploding.

Credit director David Slade who made the wonderful Hard Candy two years ago for taking a villain that has sees more movies per year than any other (sorry Zombie's, but I looked it up). Not having handled horror before, he moves the camera around with ease and some of the shots - one of an overhead shot of the town while the vampires mercilessly kill tens of townsfolk and another of one of the best axe to the throat scenes that I have seen in…well, maybe ever - will resonate with me for long long after the screening.

For those just looking to be scared, I can assure you than enough things jump and crash out at you that you will jolt at least five times in the tightly wound 113 minutes.

With Hostel II behind us and Saw IV still to come, I am going to go ahead and crown 30 Days of Night as the horror film of the year not to be missed during the Halloween haunting season. And when that is over, get your orders in for the DVD now so that you can pause, rewind and relive the terror all over again.