30 Days Of Night: Dark Days (2010)

**This review contains spoilers**

Ten months after the events of 30 Days Of Night, Stella Oleson (Kiele Sanchez) is trying to move on after the death of her husband, Eben. As one of the few survivors of the vampire massacre at Barrow, Stella dedicates her life to convincing everyone, who’ll listen in the real existence of vampires by traveling the country and the world, promoting her tell-all book about the attack.

But along the way, Stella is met with resistance from a human servant of the vampires named Agent Norris (Troy Ruptash). After exposing and burning three vampires to death, who hid in the crowd of her latest book reading with UV lights, Stella is recruited by a small group of vampire hunters. Motivated by their own tragic run-ins with vampires, Paul (Rhys Coiro), Todd (Harold Perrineau), and Amber (Diora Baird) do their best to convince Stella to join the fight, but she refuses at first. Although, Stella changes her mind after meeting, Dane (Ben Cotton), the leader of the vampire hunters, who happens to be a vampire himself, and a pep talk with Paul. And unbeknownst to Stella, Dane recruited her through a series of letters discussing vampires and the incident in Barrow.

Stella agrees to join Dane, Paul, Todd, and Amber, as they search for Lilith (Mia Kirshner), the vampire queen, who controls and orchestrates her own pack of vampires. But the vampire hunters will have to fight off a turned Agent Norris, and find a way to foil Lilith’s plans of returning to Alaska with another freighter ship full of vampires for a thirty day feast.

Melissa George wasn’t bad as Stella in the original, but at the same time, she didn’t set a high bar for the character with her performance, so I don’t have a big problem with Sanchez as a replacement. Sanchez is a decent enough leading lady, but her character strays into unlikable territory in certain parts of the film. Mia Kirshner would get my pick for best performance, but her character doesn’t receive enough screen time. Lilith speaks a little English (“show me” and “Stella”), but the vast majority of her dialogue is the ancient vampire language we heard Marlow speak in the first film. Kirshner does a good job of blending together sexiness and the commanding presence of a leader, and she never leans too far one way or the other. Rest of the cast is average or mediocre at best, so there’s no need to mention them one by one.

Lazy writing and cookie-cutter, generic characters are a problem for Dark Days, but the sequel deserves some credit for a handful of noticeable changes. First, you can really see how traumatized Stella is after Barrow, as she travels all over with the mission to spread vampire awareness. And Stella isn’t some scared survivor in Dark Days. She’s a fearless ass-kicker, who’s more than willing to get her hands dirty, and do the nasty stuff.  Plus, the protagonists aren’t a bunch of scared survivors, trapped in a dark town with no sunlight for thirty days this time around. They’re vampire hunters driven by revenge, who are willing to do and risk everything to stop Lilith and her clan.

Unfortunately, Dark Days really suffers from a cast of some the most generic characters you’ll ever see. Stella is the angry and frustrated outsider, who’s hesitant to trust other people, but as the film progresses, she assumes the role of leader after earning respect. Before Stella takes over, Paul is the soft-spoken lieutenant, who tries to be the peacemaker. Todd is the Yes Man, who just goes along with everything, and Dane is your typical quiet but firm leader, who lets his actions speak louder than words.

And  Diora Baird’s Amber is pretty annoying. Baird’s performance isn’t to blame, but the direction of her character takes so many wild and confusing turns. Amber is supposed to be the tough and uncooperative rebel in the group, but every time the group faces some real danger, Amber turns into this panicky wimp? As the group infiltrates Lilith’s ship at the end for the final showdown, Amber completely freaks out, and she begs Stella and Paul to run away with her? It didn’t make any sense.

I ranted about the stupidity of the ending in the original, and the ending in Dark Days is just as bad. So after the big final battle with Lilith and her crew, Stella returns to Barrow to dig up Eben’s grave. After witnessing a resurrection ritual on Lilith’s ship involving a good amount of fresh blood, Stella decides to try the same thing on Eben‘s dead body. Stella slits her wrists and arms to pour out as much blood as she can before passing out from blood loss, and she squeezes her blood over Eben’s burned corpse. Of course, Eben comes back to life, and guess what happens as the screen fades to black to end the movie? Eben bites Stella in the neck. Eh, I can understand Stella wanting to see Eben alive again, but she had to know he would come back as a vampire, right? So stupid.

The revelation of Lilith’s big sinister plan is disappointing and deflating, because “OH NO!” Lilith is going to Alaska for another thirty day feast! Seriously? That was the main story in the first film! And my god Dark Days is predictable as predictable can be. Stella falling in love with Paul, Stella emerging as the leader of the group, the one on one showdown between Lilith and Stella at the end, and Stella being the sole survivor at the end. Dark Days just goes through the motions from the opening minutes all the way up until the credits start rolling.

With all that said, I always enjoy Dark Days as stupid fun. Dark Days still provides plenty of gory and bloody moments, with Stella smashing a turned Todd’s head into mush with a cinder block as the highlight. The action sequences? Yeah, they are repetitive (a lot of shootouts/fights in dark tunnels, or dark areas like inside the freighter ship), but there’s enough carnage, blood, and dismembered bodies to overlook the monotony. Still, don’t expect anything great or mind blowing from this one, because Dark Days suffers from your usual straight-to-video horror sequel problems (average overall cast, average to mediocre special effects, and a so-so story).

Rating: 5/10

30 Days Of Night (2007)

**This review contains spoilers**

As the citizens of Barrow, Alaska prepare for thirty nights and days of darkness during the annual polar-night month, a mysterious and dirty stranger (Ben Foster) wanders into town with a freighter ship close behind him. Upon his arrival, The Stranger destroys all the communications in Barrow, a helicopter, and murders a group of sled dogs. After The Stranger causes an altercation with a waitress at the local diner, the town Sheriff, Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) steps in, and arrests him.

As nightfall approaches, The Stranger is in jail, but a group of vampires slowly sneak out of the freighter ship, and invade the town. Eventually, it’s revealed The Stranger helped the vampires through a serious of careful steps and planning to make sure no one else would suspect anything fishy. The pack of vampires are lead by Marlow (Danny Huston), and soon enough, the vampires are able to take control of the town with ease. At the Sheriff’s office, Eben’s younger brother, Jake (Mark Rendall), narrowly escapes a vampire attack, but Jake and Eben’s grandmother, who works as a desk clerk at the Sheriff’s office, is murdered.

Eben must put aside bitter feelings for his ex-wife and fire marshal, Stella Oleson (Melissa George), who is upset about missing the last plane for thirty days out of Barrow, and work with her to survive the vampire attacks. Cut off from the outside world with no help, Eben leads and commands the team of Stella, Jake, Beau Brower (Mark Boone Junior), Barrow’s rowdy snowplow driver, who uses his snowplow machine to help in the fight, and the remaining townspeople in Barrow against the vampires.

But after their cover is blown in the attic of an abandoned house, Eben and the other survivors realize they won’t be able to just hide and wait it out for the first sunrise in thirty days. No, they’ll have to fight back for survival, and risk their lives to outlast the darkness.

Hartnett is a competent leading man, and he’s a believable fearless leader. Melissa George delivers the second best performance as Stella. During the early stages of the movie, Stella is someone, who comes off as whiny and unlikable, but as Eben and Stella start working together again, George’s character becomes someone, who you can root for. Sad to say, but Boone Junior’s Beau is the only character, who has some real life here. Boone Junior is entertaining as the angry old man, who’s not afraid of any danger, but the rest of Barrow’s survivors (including Jake) aren’t given enough of a personality to stand out amongst each other.

The vampires? Eh, I can hardly say anything about them. The vampires in 30 Days Of Night are feral cannibals, who just growl and yell a lot. Danny Huston is the only one, who actually speaks, but subtitles are attached to his dialogue, because Marlow speaks an ancient vampire language. Although, Marlow speaks one line of English in the film. When a young woman is begging for her life, she asks for God to help her. Marlow responds by saying “God? God……no God” before allowing his pack to torture and kill the young woman.

Director David Slade (I still can’t believe this guy directed a Twilight film) deserves a lot of credit for creating the perfect eerie, hopeless, and spooky atmosphere. When the vampires aren’t yelling or growling, there’s a chilling silence in the dark streets of Barrow, as the remaining survivors tiptoe to the next safe house. 30 Days Of Night gets some bonus points from me for confining the protagonists in a desolate death trap, that favors the antagonists with no means of escape. It feels like a refreshing change, because 30 Days isn’t hampered by a plot that involves vampires trying to secretly take over the world, inconspicuously living in the shadows, or one vampire antagonist or more stalking a victim or victims, who discovered their secret.

Unfortunately, 30 Days Of Night will bore you with dull and one-dimensional characters. As I said before, Boone Junior’s Beau is the only character with a real spark. Yeah, I understand everyone is terrified for their lives and the safety of their loved ones, and because they’re facing a life or death threat, everyone has a break through revelation. Eben and Stella slowly start to trust each other again, and Eben realizes he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life without Stella. Jake realizes he has to grow up and be a man, because he was spending most of his time at his grandmother’s house growing and smoking weed. And some of the elderly survivors would rather die, so they willingly sacrifice themselves, because they feel like they’ve reached the end of the line. That’s all well and good, but personality wise, it’s hard to pick out an individual amongst the survivors, because the VAST majority of the cast never rises above “OH NO! VAMPIRES! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO!” reactions. Foster’s creepy and eccentric Stranger character had a chance to stand out. He had the perfect look as, this deranged and filthy homeless man, but his character doesn’t last too long.

Although, I have mixed feelings for the characters in 30 Days Of Night. Yes. They are boring and dull, but I still root for their survival. Unless the protagonists reach extreme unlikable levels (this doesn‘t apply to anyone in 30 Days), you can always rally behind the group of unlikely heroes and underdogs, who come together to fight and stop a seemingly invincible evil power. It’s a timeless formula, and more often than not, you can plug this formula into any genre of film, and it still works today. 

But I hate the stupid ending for this film. So with one day left before sunrise, Eben and the group make a run for a utilidor, because they believe it’ll be a perfect stronghold to ride out the attack until sunrise. But as they’re making a run for it, Stella separates herself from the group to rescue a petrified survivor wandering around in the streets. Stella and the survivor hide underneath a wrecked car, but the vampires decide to drench the streets in oil, and they start a fire to burn the entire town to the ground, so everyone else will assume the attack was nothing more than a tragic accident. The streets are burning, Stella is trapped under the car, so Eben comes up with the bright idea to turn himself into a vampire, so he can fight Marlow for a distraction, giving Stella and the survivor time to escape. Eben injects himself with the blood of a turned friend, fights and kills Marlow, and he burns to death in Stella’s arms, as they watch the sunrise the very next morning (Eben promised Stella they would watch the sunrise no matter what).

This ending….didn’t make any sense. Just pay close attention. Stella had PLENTY of chances to escape without the vampires noticing her. Sunrise was hours away, and the vampires were focused on the fire. Eben transforms himself into a vampire, and yeah, he kills the leader. But what do the vampires do after the fight? They walk away, because they didn’t have enough time to do anything else. So in the grand scheme of things, his sacrifice and the melodramatic ending with Stella holding a dying and burning Eben didn’t make the least bit of sense, because everything leading up to this particular series of events was so unnecessary.

30 Days Of Night will satisfy true gore fiends, because this film is loaded with a lot of nasty and bloody gruesomeness, and some brutal beheadings. A few decent action sequences every now and then, and although I can’t stand the frustrating and nonsensical events leading up to it, the final fight between Marlow and a vampiric Eben was fun to watch. With the background of the burning town behind them, Eben fought with everything he had, and Eben slamming his fist through Marlow’s mouth and the back of his head for the kill at the same time is a memorable jaw-dropping moment, that’s capable of leaving you speechless. Personally, I would LOVE to go with a higher score, but deep down inside, I know 30 Days Of Night isn’t that good.

Rating: 7/10