30 Days of Night April 24th, 2010
Originally Written 11/13/07
I braved 30 Days of Night with a friend this evening. We knew it had mixed reviews, but we were curious about it and it looked like it could be a fun goofy movie. Wrong! Sometimes bad is bad. It wasn’t fun bad, it was boring and stupid bad. It was wretched!
It started out with some promise and had a bit of style to it. Then it went to hell pretty quickly. The director confused action and suspense with quick edits and shaky cameras so you couldn’t see what was happening, and freaking loud sounds. I know they wanted to make it gritty and dark, but the vampires were just ugly thugs and the violence was pointless and artless. After a couple of shots of bloody-faced pseudo-philosophy spouting Russian Eurotrash, I was immensely tired of them. And quit screeching already, you want to scare me, not annoy me to death. I did find the flicker of amusement at seeing the likeness of Tor Johnson in the mix though.
The movie was full of pointless scenes, confusing exposition, inconsistencies and plot-holes. I wasn’t expecting anything great, but it wasn’t even entertaining. I think the movie had about five minutes of enjoyment for me. There was one fun and unintentionally goofy scene where one of the guys chases after the vampires with a giant construction truck, which conveniently had a tar-chewing chainsaw mounted on the front. Now that was cool, but sadly it didn’t last and we were back to the same old crap again.
I haven’t hated a film this much in some time. It’s been awhile since I’ve left the theater annoyed and borderline angry. Heh, I guess we had it coming and at least we had some fun kvetching at how crappy it was afterwards. Man, it’s like Underworld, but not as entertaining or good; actually that film is a masterpiece compared to this turd. Now there’s a warning for you!