30 Days of Night
MPAA Rating:
 for strong horror violence and languageReviewed by: Chris Sosa Extremely Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
 ½Primary Audience:
Adults
Genre:
Horror, Thriller
Length:
1 hr. 53 min.
Year of Release:
2007
USA Release:
October 19, 2007
          Relevant Issues
How does viewing violence in movies affect the family? Answer Vampire movies
Blade (1998) The Little Vampire (2000) Dracula 2000 (2000) The Forsaken (2001) Queen of the Damned (2002) Blade II (2002) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) Underworld (2003) Blade: Trinity (2004) Van Helsing (2004) Ultraviolet (2006) Underworld: Evolution (2006) BloodRayne (2006) 30 Days of Night (2007)
“30 Days of Night” is the latest installment in the constantly-evolving vampire-film collection. In this latest installment, a town in Alaska is descended upon during its thirty days of darkness. This small town is hardly prepared for such an infestation, so it’s up to the town’s young sheriff, Eben Oleson, to control the ever-escalating violence. This proves quite a task as these aren’t the vampires of yesteryear. Fast as lightning and with super-strength, one wonders what vampire legend the writers had in mind when penning this movie. The first area of concern for Christians will most likely be the violence. While it does not approach the nearly unimaginable levels of “Saw III” or many of the other popular torture-porn films, “30 Days of Night” is very gruesome. Vampires constantly use their teeth to rip at their victims throats. The main character is prone to using decapitation as a control method. Machinery is used to rip at the vampires. Necks are broken in graphic fashion on multiple occasions. Characters are impaled. Particularly unsettling are scenes in which the vampires slash at their victims until they decide that their victim has suffered enough torture, at which time they rip into their throats. Characters are shot, run over, beaten, etc. All violent scenes are in no short supply of blood. Also, one of the opening scenes depicts an unseen villain stabbing a dog to death. Later, a gruesome scene is shown in which all the dogs have been mauled. Aside from the violence, the only concern for most will be the use of harsh language. The f-word is used over ten times, with a few milder profanities throughout. There is also a plot point that involves pot, but no characters are shown using pot. Also, one scene contains some mild sexual dialogue. Now onto the spiritual side… This film is oddly not concerned with spiritual matters, in spite of its vampire theme. But “30 Days of Night” is more akin to Underworld than Dracula. The only blatantly spiritual scene involves a vampire coming across a helpless victim screaming that there is no one to help her. The vampire asks, “God?” He looks up, looks back at her, shakes his head to say “no,” then murders her. Morally, this movie is a bit repulsive. The lead character murders multiple people, each time using some sort of extenuating circumstance to justify his killing. In his favor, the one killing was an attempted mercy killing. Blood and gore are used for entertainment more than any sort of plot device. A little girl-turned-vampire is used for shock value as this child is decapitated by the leading character. From an artistic viewpoint, this movie is rather terrible. The plot loses steam less than half-way through the movie, and it really wasn’t that exciting from the start. This isn’t helped by the acting, which goes from average to painful. And even worse are the vampires. I’ve scene scarier creatures in haunted houses. While one or two were genuinely creepy, many were somewhat laughable. The only area that succeeds is the cinematography and editing. The color scheme is perfectly suited to the atmosphere, creating a genuinely chilling environment. The editing is also used to great affect in chase and attack scenes. However, this can’t pull the film out of its awful plot and execution. In the end, “30 Days of Night” is a “good” idea gone very wrong. The film alternates between being laughable and repulsive. It plays the mindless gore card so often, any perceptive audience member can’t help but feel insulted. As mean-spirited as this movie tends to attempt to be, it’s nearly impossible to take seriously because of how incredibly bad it is. I felt like I was watching what could have been a tense and edgy Steven King film disintegrate into a freshman attempt at horror. It even had the half-wittedness to reference the classic Dracula during the film, just reminding the audience of what they could have been at home watching. Violence: Extreme / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Mild See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.  Comments below:
Positive
Positive - Overall, I thought this movie was amazing. Yes, it was very violent, but rather than focusing solely on the violence, it uses the violence to further the intensity of the story and build up our fear of the vampires. It is a rated R movie, so don’t go see it and then act surprised when violence starts rearing its head. There is also a handful of language in the movie, but it is very minimal compared to most movies these days. The movie has an incredible message of sacrifice and persevering no matter what the cost. The characters face an almost unstoppable evil, and there fear is so palpable, that every time they survive an encounter, you can’t help but be excited. Overall, it’s a great horror movie for adults. Positive - For a rated R-movie in today’s society this was very good. My husband and I very-rarely attend R movies, however when we saw that this rating was pertaining to some language and violence, we figured we’d give it a try. If you don’t like blood or monsters, or if you are under the age 13, this movie is not for you. This movie is gruesome in the fact that vampires are taking advantage of a town in Alaska that has one complete month of night per year. They ransack the town, killing the vast majority of its members by feeding off of them. The vampires were quite scary and unlike any portrayed in any other movie of its kind. Negative
Negative - Having nothing to do on a Friday afternoon I went down to my local movie theater to check out the latest comic book-to-film adaptation, 30 Days of Night. Now me being a big fan of comic books, I thought that 30 Days of Night did a decent job of adapting the story from the pages of the graphic novel to film. Even though the film wasn’t entirely shot in comic book fashion (e.g. Frank Miller’s “Sin City,” “300”) director David Slade did manage to pull off some pretty impressive (if violent) shots in the film using panels from the comic. This added that much needed comic book feel to the film that I thought was lacking a bit. Negative - Do NOT take kids to see this movie. Do NOT rent this and let your kids see it. If you are a parent, be a good one and leave your niños out. This fanfare is strictly for adults, and if I had kids of my own, I’d say they weren’t allowed to see it—til they were out from under my roof. I can’t believe I saw it. I certainly don’t recommend you see it. It is a very graphic, carnal, in-your-face, vampire-laden film rife with many killings and bloodcurdling screams. The makers went all out. This is not your run-of-the-mill vampire story; it is a genuine “horror” flick. The plot is based on an north Alaskan town that experiences 30 days of darkness annually—the perfect buffet for a clan of vampires. And that’s it. Fill in the rest of the blanks in this game of survival. Negative - I kept having the feeling that I was watching spiritual darkness manifested on my television... this movie unfortunately did have a fair amount of blood and violence and a very ominous feeling throughout. I really hope that people will just not even bother watching because this movie left me feeling very sad that I was even watching it (as Paul wrote, 'why do I do what I do not want to?')... |
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