Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I’m really curious about this one. I liked David Slade’s HARD CANDY, but didn’t love it, and I think he’s got real potential as a filmmaker. This is one of those simple concepts that I’d hate to see someone screw up, especially after all the time and energy that’s gone into getting it onscreen so far. And now we’ve got a second review of last week’s Torrence test screening:

As with your other reviewer, I was also at the Torrance, CA screening of ‘30 Days of Night’ yesterday evening. I’m a big fan of the graphic novel, I went into this with high hopes and boy were they met. Aside with small gripes over issues that should be fixed by the time of release, things like uneven pacing, the movie was almost a perfect adaptation of the source material.

It begins calmly enough by introducing us to the town of Barrow, Alaska and their quiet, uneventful existence. There is something lurking underneath this sense of normalcy, however, as we see Sheriff Eben Olemaun becoming uneasy due to the nature of the calls he’s reporting to. At a somewhat brisk pace we’re introduced to our main characters, and as is the nature of horror movies, our meat, the characters that serve the story by having bad bad things happen to them. Then, when the sun goes down, the movie kicks into overdrive. We are treated to a fairly hectic series of events that, in addition to vastly reducing the population of this town, push our characters into survival mode for the rest of the movie, the most fucked game of cat and mouse that our main characters could have imagined.

The pros:

-Mark Boon Junior. I know the name might not sound familiar but you will recognize him from his role in Batman Begins. His character, Beau, makes one of the best attacks against the undead I’ve seen on film. Think logging equipment.

-Ben Foster. Completely un-fucking-recognizable in his role as ‘The Stranger,’ the clan’s trusty familiar. Creepy as all hell and a scene stealer. Ben Foster is quickly becoming the next Johnny Depp, with his complete willingness to undergo the physical transformation his work requires, giving himself over fully to the character.

-The camera work. There’s one shot during the vampires first attack that leaves you horrified at what they’re doing to this town.

-Josh Hartnett. You’ll believe he can play a bad-ass from this point on. A man willing to give up everything to protect ‘family.’

-The style. The weather effects and the creature design place you firmly within Ben Templesmith’s artwork.

And finally…

-The Vampires. Unlike any vampires to grace the screen before. These aren’t your parent’s romantic blood-sucking Goths. These are apex predators. They move like jaguars, feed like piranha, and hunt in packs. No silly fangs here, instead we have mouths packed full of razor-sharp needles. Truly ferocious.

The con:

-The complete removal of Vincente from the book, along with his entire subplot. Although I can understand why it was done, in order to streamline everything into a concise story about what one will do to survive, for fans of the comics, he will be missed. Hopefully, should they decide to continue Stella’s story into ‘Dark Days’ and ‘Eben and Stella,’ we will see him introduced.

Overall, a great movie with a great twist on vampire stories. I will definitely be paying to see this one come October.

If you decide to use this call me Mikey Sunshine.