Weekly Review -- A bloody new release

30 Days of Night (2007) -- Combine an ingenious story, well thought-out character relations and super scary creatures, and what do you get? You get 30 Days of Night, a thrilling and innovative addition to the vampire sub-genre. The Alaskan town of Barrow gets 30 days of darkness every year and Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) is one of the people instrumental in the preparations for the longest night. As some residents get ready to leave for the period and some brace themselves to ride it out, there is word of unusual accidents and killings taking place, while a strange man (Ben Foster) gets arrested for disturbing the peace at a local bar. Through unbelievable crime scene sightings and the stranger's cryptic warnings, a group of locals, including Eben and his ex-wife Stella (Melissa George), realize that they have become prey of a group of vampires who have decided to make Barrow their feeding ground for the next month. The group need to figure out whether it will be the vamps or the merciful sunlight that get to Barrow first... Very rarely do we have profound character relations in a horror film, especially in a creature feature, where much of the emphasis is often on plotlines, make-up and effects. However, the interactions in this movie -- especially the ones between Eben and his brother, as well as the trust the residents place in Eben -- really make the viewer sympathize with the characters' plight. As far as the vampires go... wow. Just wow. These vampires are not your garden variety bloodsuckers. They are feral and unpredictable; they do not drink blood, they pillage arteries. Their intensity is what makes them more than worthy opponents to the group of resourceful humans. Hartnett is sympathetic and tough as the sheriff, and Danny Huston is charismatic and threatening as Marlow, the sadistic vampire leader. George adopts a great accent and appropriate ruggedness for the role of Stella, while Foster steals every scene he is in. Director David Slade pays close attention to the paradoxically rich and desolate locales, and there are also some amazing shots that you will remember for a long time. The only tiny shortcoming I could find was the resemblance between one scene and a scene in another horror movie, but that is about all. See 30 Days of Night if you would like to enjoy a new spin on the vampire lore.

8/10