Rating: R
Run Time: 113 minutes
Director: David Slade
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
A “graphic novel” is a comic book. It may be a pretty thick comic book, but it’s still a comic book. Apparently many of the more famous originators of the form were not so terribly insistent on calling them graphic novels at all. Even if so, I don’t think they are suggesting their creations necessarily have literary merit, because that would probably be a bit of a stretch. Nor am I condemning them if they do. The ones I’ve read are exceptional examples of the form. The story lines are usually very compelling, some very much more so than many true novels or original screenplays within the fantastic film genre. But they’re still comics. Who can say if the marketing of these thick comics as graphic novels is a cynical ploy to increase their profitability?
The problem with translations of graphic
novels to the screen is that, both being visual media, one doesn’t know without
checking out the source material who is responsible for the photographic
compositions of the movie. Did they crib it from the comic, or are the
shots original? I’m not going to buy the graphic novel to make that
determination, either. What the best do seem to be are straight-out
storyboards for the studios that film them, which would make those studios very
lazy. Or merely opportunistic. But we already know that, don’t
we?
Thirty
Days of Night/TDON is a cinematic reproduction of the
graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. I think the movie
got it mostly right. TDON may
be, as some critics have complained, more a thriller than a horror movie, but
you can’t beat the premise Niles and Templesmith dreamed up. Like some
books, many of the graphic novels seem designed to be adapted to film.
The town of Barrow, Alaska, is apparently
home to a large group of misanthropes who do not mind the general year-round
solitude it affords. One month during that year, the whole town witnesses
a final sunrise they will not see again for thirty days. During this
period, many family members who are probably still haters but who despise the
thought of no sunshine for a month even more, hook it out of Barrow on a plane.
Those who are left behind this particular
year soon learn they are screwed six ways to Sunday and then some when a series
of odd events around town portend a very dismal future for the remaining
townies. A large theft of cell phones has occurred, and they have been
taken into the hinterland and torched. We witness a scene of a large
group of sled dogs being savagely killed by someone or something. A
helicopter owned by one resident has been damaged beyond what can easily be
repaired. To recap, there’s no way out, radio contact will soon be
hampered, and we soon find out that what’s on the way can outrun a snowmobile.
These ominous and seemingly unrelated
occurrences take place as the sun sets. The filmmakers do a fine job of
developing the sense of foreboding inherent in such a scenario as this; the
incidents trip over each other such that tension builds honestly. The
sheriff of the township, Eben Oleson, sees the aftermath of these events
as we do, and he is an intelligent enough protagonist to be worried about the
implication of the random occurrences, although these happenings come at him
rapidly and give him little time to think critically about their
interrelatedness. There is no doubt, though…trouble’s brewing.
Josh Hartnett plays Eben
Oleson. The actor gets quite a bit of criticism for sucking up the screen
in pretty much everything, but I’ve always found him to be reasonably
believable. We have become such a critical people. It’s as if no
one has ever seen a movie, any movie, from the 80s. What we have currently is
far more naturalistic than anything at all that has come before, so why the
tendency to quickly malign?
Also stranded in the town is Eben’s
estranged wife (Melissa George). Apparently the whole damned town wants these two to re-connect, and, before
it’s over, they will, in one of those “adversity has brought us back together”
sort of ways. For now, however, she is the only other person in the town
diner with a gun when this little creepy fella starts bowing up on Eben.
Other than these three, the rest of the townspeople are much closer to types
than flesh and blood characters, although they’re all by and large likeable and
well-acted. Still, in the end, it’s very much the Eben and Stella show in
terms of story.
Eben takes the little guy, credited as
“The Stranger,” back to the lockup at the police station. Really, “The
Stranger” is a moniker that should be reserved for badasses, the laconic kind
played by Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef or maybe Chuck Norris. This
little guy is no badass. He’s creepy in a sinister sort of homeless child
molester way, but the only real danger he poses (other than his personal
hygiene, which leaves much to be desired and looks to be just about as
assaultive as his behavior) is by way of his association with what’s on its
way, because he has paved the path (“The Stranger” is the busy bee who torched
the phones, killed the dogs, and wrecked the helicopter). He also keeps
annoyingly insisting that death is coming, and that just gets tiresome after a
while (he is thus sort of a villain’s version of the “Crazy Male
Cassandra”). When it finally came about, I wasn’t terribly displeased to
see “The Stranger” get his.
What, then, is on its way? It’s
simple, really. Ask yourself this: just exactly who or what would most benefit from thirty days of
night? Right? Beware reading further if you are still confused.
(SPOILER ALERT) A coven of some nasty-ass
vampires descend upon the townspeople of Barrow. They are incredibly
fast-moving, have a heightened sense of hearing and smell, and their teeth
resemble that of a shark’s. Too, they have the blackest eyes (“…the
devil’s eyes,”… sorry). These vampires are pack hunters and are not
in the least romantic or touchy-feely, either. They’re predators.
Their leader is a vampire named Marlow,
although I don’t recall the name ever being spoken in the film. And
if it had been, you wouldn’t have heard it
because the only one who says a damned word is the leader, and he doesn’t
refer to himself in the third person (“Marlow would really like a hot blood
bath,” he said to his minions). Even if he did call himself Marlow, you wouldn’t
understand him anyway because he talks in this harsh, clicking, guttural
language.
Danny Huston does something nifty with the
part of Marlow. He buries himself so that what remains on the screen is a
soulless creature devoid of any vestige of humanity (although he is capable of
demonstrating regret when he must kill one of his vampire lovers). You
get the feeling he’s one of those centuries-old king vampire types who turn up
in these films every once in a while. There’s no question he’s the boss
here.
Contra-distinct from Marlow, Eben and
Stella between the pair of them equal one pretty good antagonist. This is
not as much a criticism of their being shallow as it is a recognition that more
than one brain is required to combat these clever monsters, particularly
Marlow.
There have been some valid criticisms
lodged against the movie (who knows if they are adequately explained in the
comic). Are we supposed to believe “The Stranger” just went through the
town unseen at some point before the movies starts and stole all the cell
phones in the whole damned place without being seen (or smelled)? And how
did the sheriff and his deputy happen onto them right smack dab in the middle
of absolute nowhere? And if somebody found them and reported it, what the
hell was he doing out there in the middle of a
white wasteland of nothingness right before a storm blows in? And, back
to “The Stranger,” he doesn’t seem up to singlehandedly killing all the dogs.
Here’s another one: where did the
townsfolk come up with all the food they needed to survive through the thirty
days? You see them forage one time in the whole movie, but elsewhere the
vampires, with their acute hearing and heightened olfactory sense, are shown to
constantly be on the alert for them.
Others have complained that the weird,
hyperkinetic motion camera thing that seems such a rage these dark days lends
to the movie an action thriller feel and not one of horror. This is
valid, I guess, although I suppose the point is to emphasize the animalistic
savagery of the vampires as predators who rend flesh and literally destroy the
bodies of their victims, making short shrift of their prey in little time at
all. Of course they do it so quickly upon arrival that you begin to
wonder what they’re going to use for food the other twenty-nine days of their
occupation. Maybe they harvest them after the kill.
There are some unanswered questions in the
film: How did the vampires get there? How did “The Stranger” get
there? That large ship we see at the beginning? It looks locked in by
ice floes itself. Who is the little girl chewing on the human at the
supply store? That one is never explained, but I suppose we are to assume
she came with the pack. What language is Marlow speaking? Why would
they speak a language different from the region of their
origin?
Still, it’s not a bad little movie.
There is a great early shot of the aftermath of the first round of carnage from
a bird’s-eye view that is very cool; I don’t know the proper term for such a
shot, but it’s cool nonetheless. Another super creepy scene: a tracking
shot of a human walking through the town center, with the vampires, out of
focus in the background, scurrying on all fours like rats across the rooftops.
Nothing too special, perhaps, but you get
frightening monsters, courage in extremis, some degree of suspense, and gore
that is tacky but believable. Judge for yourself how effective the final
showdown is as gripping cinema. I had a problem with it. Otherwise
I thought it was worthwhile.
The Horror Inkwell Rating: 6/10
