A few years back a small independent comic book company called IDW published a comic book called 30 Days Of Night from the author/artist team of Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. The comic book was a hit and a few years later Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures optioned the film rights, and the rest history.

The story revolves around a Sheriff named Eben Olsen whose in charge of the small town of Barrow, Alaska. As the film begins, the town is preparing for thirty days without sun, a strange phenomenon that happens annually in the area. A lot of the locals are heading south to Fairbanks for the month, but Eben is sticking around. His soon to be ex-wife, Stella (Melissa George), however, has missed her plane and when she gets stuck, she calls him for help. Eben sends his right hand man to go get her while he deals with a strange man (Ben Foster) who has started causing trouble - he's destroyed all the cell phones he can find and killed off most of the dogs in town.

Once they get the man imprisoned, he begins to tell everyone in the police station that they're all going to die. Shortly after his ominous warning, a group of vicious vampires attack the town's power supply and the building that houses all of the phone equipment. The few people who have stuck around are now entirely shrouded in darkness and completely cut off from the rest of the world, and now they have to deal with a gang of vampires, lead by a man named Marlow (Danny Huston), who plan on making short work of them.

30 Days Of Night is a refreshingly different take on the played out vampire genre and it toys with a few genre expectations to surprisingly good results. You'd imagine that Eben and his small group of humans would band together and stand up to the vampires in the film but the reality of the situation is that they're outnumbered and even if the odds were even, the vampires are much leaner, meaner and stronger than they are. Attempting to stand up to them would be akin to committing suicide. Instead, the group spends much of their time trying to hide, really their only hope of survival. This allows director David Slade to create a couple of scenes that exhibit some serious tension.

The film is also remarkably bloody. There are a couple of moments here that you probably won't expect to be shown quite so graphically when you consider that this is a mainstream Hollywood film starring some A-list actors. There are buckets of blood spilt throughout the film and one long, lingering shot of the first massacre in particular really stick with you. It's also interesting to see how the vampires here are portrayed - they're not running around in capes with European accents, they're feral and animalistic. They move fast and don't bother chatting up their victims, they simply want to feast.

As far as the performances are concerned, Hartnett, who is normally fairly uncharismatic, does a solid job carrying the picture. His Eben is a likeable enough guy and if he looks a little young to be a sheriff, at least he handles the physical side of the role pretty believably. Melissa George isn't anything to write him about but she's not terrible here either. Ben Foster is excellent as the filthy, creepy stranger while Danny Huston plays the sinister vampire leader with just enough flair to make it work.

For a movie that takes place almost completely in the dark, 30 Days Of Night is well shot. The snowbound settings and claustrophobic interiors instantly conjure up memories of Carpenter's The Thing but the similarities are really only superficial. While it's certainly true that 30 Days Of Night falls victim to a couple of obvious horror movie clichés, it gets enough right and it sets itself apart in a few interesting ways. The film doesn't reinvent the wheel but it sure is an entertaining and suspenseful picture with plenty of excitement and some fantastically creepy moments.

Video:

30 Days Of Night looks good on DVD in an anamorphic 2.40.1 widescreen. A few scenes are intentionally grainy looking but detail is strong throughout, even in the shadowy scenes that make up a large portion of the running time. Color reproduction looks very good, and skin tones are lifelike and natural throughout. Edge enhancement is never a problem and compression artifacts are held firmly in check. The image is perpetually sharp and crisp and overall Sony has done a fine job maintaining the visual style of the film from start to finish.