Movie reviews, production notes, and more! - "30 Days of Night"

Movie Review: 30 Days of Night

Film Review By Michael Phillips, Tribune Movie Critic In between meals the vampires in "30 Days of Night" converse in a language scrambling together a little Dutch, a little Hebrew and a little Arabic, so that a subtitle reading "We should've come here ages ago" accompanies dialogue that sounds like "Ak-mak poop-dek humuna-humuna-humuna-ptooooey." The film is based on a 2002 graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, set in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost burg in the U.S., where a diminishing handful of survivors must fend off the bloodthirsty so-and-sos long enough to see the end of the annual month without sun. Fast and gory and pretty spectacular in its amalgam of Bram Stoker and "Northern Exposure," the graphic novel is very entertaining. Slower and gory, director David Slade's dutiful film version has its moments - including an eerily beautiful gliding overhead perspective of the vampires and their victims and the blood-stained snow - but it feels sluggish and attenuated. It's too bad, because the world could've used a new collection of vampires, a breed operating at the speed of light with the ferocity of a sales force working entirely on commission, the way "28 Days Later" and especially "28 ... read more Official Web Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/30daysofnight/ Back to main movie page Showing Today at: Click here for other showings