30 Days of Night

[DeadKennedys]

Anyone seen this yet?

It's set in a town in Alaska, where once a year, the sun doesn't rise for an entire month. If that isn't ominous enough, 4/5 of the town leaves, and a mysterious stranger shows up in town. Before they know it, vampires descend and half a month-long blood orgy ensues.

I wasn't too happy to see Josh Hartnett as the protagonist, but he wasn't bad. Also, hot vampire bitches. :love

I thought the vampires, their dialogue, actions, suspense, were all very well done.

Best quote? "I can kill anything. I can kill these."

[MarioRPG]

I heard it's mediocre. It's a rental for me.

[darkvare]

is bruce campbell in it
also josh did a great job in lucky number slevin

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I went on a second date to see this movie, and the girl I took is like an Ann Rice vampire purist.

So, afterward, she was all like "omg! After like 25 days they should be tired and hungry, not so strong!"

I liked it. We probably won't go out again.

[noob3]

it sucked and had lots of plot holes! like, it goes straight from the survivors doubting that they are vampires ie "VAMPIRES AINT REAL!" to "HERE'S THE PLAN, GUYS! WE'RE GOING TO SNEAK OUT TO GRANDMA'S HOUSE, AND USE HER WEED LAMPS TO BURN THEM INTO VAMPIRE DUST! READY? GO!" (YES THAT IS A REAL SCENARIO IN THE MOVIE, AND NO, IT DOES NTO MAKE IT ANY BETTER)

don't go see this movie it really sucks! we should have seen saw 4, it says "IT's A TRAP!" right there on the movie thing! that's like one of the coolest lines ever!

also, spoilers:

3 people turn into vampires, and the main guy's solution is to cut thier head off. okay, great. but in the end, he's like "MAN I HAVE TO TURN INTO A VAMPIRE TO FIGHT THESE GUYS!" wtf? why didn't they just send the infected dudes to fight? what a load of shit!

[zeldasbiggestfan]

I heard it really sucked.

I still want to see it.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

I thought it was excellent. Good amount of story and action and the best decapitation I've ever witnessed on film.

[JediScum]

the best decapitation I've ever witnessed on film.

So you're saying you've seen one not on film?!?!?

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Yes!!!

[Grislygus]

I went on a second date to see this movie, and the girl I took is like an Ann Rice vampire purist.

"Anne Rice" and "vampire purist" should never go in the same sentence together.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

No doubt. One of the reasons I liked 30 Days was because it dropped all the romantic undead bullshit and revisited the original vampire-creature mythos. I'm checking it out again tonight.

[MattJack]

I wasn't scurrrd.

It was basically a big gore fest to me, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I was expecting to be a little creeped out.

To me it was basically a spin off of Hope Floats, but it just had a little bit of gore and a slightly worse storyline.

[Mintrude]

Did the vampires follow that horrible trend of looking like cyber-goths? Ick.

[DeadKennedys]

No doubt. One of the reasons I liked 30 Days was because it dropped all the romantic undead bullshit and revisited the original vampire-creature mythos. I'm checking it out again tonight.

Yeah. Instead of sipping Chardonnay and doing the weeping willow to thumping goth and techno tracks and gently giving their "victims" love bites whilst fucking them, they're hissing, tearing people to shreds (women, children, and alzheimer's patients are not spared), lighting towns on fire and sowing chaos while alluding to their mythology and looking creepy, ancient (if they had a cyber-goth phase, they grew out of it), and sexy in their totally sweet suits.

If nothing else, the character design was fantastic

What's the problem with the other characters? They're hicks in the frozen north. Some of them will deny it until they're faced with it and their lives are at stake, while others take action and defend the herd at their own expense. Pretty accurate. And using UV rays was damn clever. Just a shame that the hot vampire bitch had to die.

SPOILERS

Sure, I'll agree with you on this, the climax was a little stupid. They couldn't trust another vampire to stay on their side, but somehow he figured that WITH THE POWER OF LOVE he could stay good long enough to change at the *exact* moment to shove his vampire-y fist through the back of the bad guy's throat, and still share a touching sunrise with his estranged wife before turning into charcoal.

Also, what the hell is a Utilador? Is it a generator? A heli pad? A giant woodchipper? A sanctuary when you and your town have gone to shit?

CHUD.com said it best. This is a big dumb action film. It looks great, lots of blood, it's exciting. The problem is, you never have a sense of character, no one to empathize with. They show little emotion, they care nothing for supplies, and they're all in great mental health by the end of it. The Utilador is their bastion of hope, and while too far to ever reach until the end of the film, it's close enough to the center of town to recognize people hiding under their cars. It's fun to watch them fight vampires for a couple of hours, but you never get the feeling that they're under siege by them for a month. One moment, it's hour 23, the next, it's day 13 and Hartnett has grown a beard; not to mention, they've had no food, no water, there's no tension, and the vampires, who were surgically tearing apart every house in the town didn't find theirs until halfway through.

That being said, it's a fun movie.

[MetalMilitia]

Did the vampires follow that horrible trend of looking like cyber-goths? Ick.

I always think that "cyber-goth" just sounds like a description for a goth that spends a whole bunch of time on the Internet.

Though I can't imagine it being a very useful noun as it seems all goths spend a whole bunch of time on the Internet.

It's like calling a fish a water-fish.

[DeadKennedys]

I always think that "cyber-goth" just sounds like a description for a goth that spends a whole bunch of time on the Internet.

Though I can't imagine it being a very useful noun as it seems all goths spend a whole bunch of time on the Internet.

It's like calling a fish a water-fish.

I hung out with goths in high school, so don't crucify me

Classic goth came about during the punk movement. They like Victorian style old clothes, manners, that kind of culture, but a little darker. It's actually quite cool, the ones I met were interesting, thoughtful, and fun to hang out with. Imagine if Elves wore black? Kinda like that

Then there's the new-wave cyber goths, the Mansonites, they want to shock you, they act like emos, and they shop at Hot Topic. The cyber goth look, I guess, is those giant raver pants, Invader Zim and other random shirts, with stupid glasses and ugly piercings.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

No doubt. One of the reasons I liked 30 Days was because it dropped all the romantic undead bullshit and revisited the original vampire-creature mythos. I'm checking it out again tonight.

Huh???

[Grislygus]

Vampire = Monster

Anne Rice/"Modern" Vampire = Colossal faggot with emotional baggage. Also, usually a Mary Sue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue).

[Mintrude]

Vampire = Monster

Anne Rice/"Modern" Vampire = Colossal faggot with emotional baggage. Also, usually a Mary Sue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue).


And usually those bloody Klingon foreheads. What the deuce is that all about?

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Also, what the hell is a Utilador? Is it a generator? A heli pad? A giant woodchipper? A sanctuary when you and your town have gone to shit?



A utilador is a 'utility corridor'. In cold climes towns build a single complex to house all the local utility industries. So, the one building is the local power station, incinerator, et all. The grinding jaws you see in the film are part of the incinerator - chews up bigger bits of the garbage for faster and more efficient burning. In places like the Yukon, the incinerator helps repel permafrost, heat homes and is harnessed to power generators.

[DeadKennedys]

Well, thank you very much.

So how did he turn a box of flares into a crate of dynamite?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Vampire = Monster

Anne Rice/"Modern" Vampire = Colossal faggot with emotional baggage. Also, usually a Mary Sue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue).


Ok, fair enough. I prefer the scary monster, too

But how is that a reversion to some old vampire "mythos"?

The popular view of a vampire is the gay guy.

[Grislygus]

To badly paraphrase those many wonderful George Carlin bits that I'm far, far too lazy to look up, "Popular usage is for schmucks". They're a scary part of local lore, a boogeyman variant, I don't care what AlphonseMcNiteheart@aol.com thinks.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

They're a scary part of local lore, a boogeyman variant


Based on what?

And I'm glad you're a cultural snob, but if there was ever a medium that depended upon pop success it's horror.

Where are you getting your version of Dracula? Bram Stroker's and Rice were closer to the gay Vlad Tepes twist around you dislike.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

So how did he turn a box of flares into a crate of dynamite?


Hollywood magic?

Ya, flares don't explode. That's actually one of their touted features.

By the way, vampires aren't real either.

[Grislygus]

Where are you getting your version of Dracula? Bram Stroker's and Rice were closer to the gay Vlad Tepes twist around you dislike.

Dracula isn't the beginning of the vampire mythos, it's when our idea of it was popularized. The first vampires weren't even bloodsuckers, they were haints. They made their way from Eastern Europe-Baba Yaga territory and evolved into blood or flesh eating ghouls. (Note: This is how I understand it, but I can't pretend to have done any seriously involved research. Shutting up now, Tithonus is far more well versed than I am).

The one thing that I can definitively tell you is that Bram Stoker's Dracula had a hell of a lot more to do with Lord Byron than Vlad the Impaler.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

You are pretty close on your observations there Grislygus.

The mythology of vampires is ancient and a total amalgamation of folklores that date to before written record. But the evolution of the mythology is actually quite easy to trace from its origins.

Every culture has some sort of blood-sucking monster in their tales of terror. It is important to note that these ancient creatures were savage and often demonic in appearance. The Ancient Greeks had Liama, Africa had the Asanbosam , Japan had the Kyūketsuki (which literally means blood sucking demon) to just name a few.

These myths mingled with the European myths of the undead wraiths and revenants in the 12th century when English historian William of Newburgh wrote of several frenzied accounts of the dead reanimating and attacking the living – specifically drinking their blood. He called these creatures sanguisuga (Latin: bloodsuckers) and recommended burning the corpses of these assailants. No one knows exactly what he saw, it was most likely complete bullshit, and England pretty much ignored his stories. But the Slavic regions took the stories to heart and in the subsequent 400 years or so became responsible for much of the early mythos. Including detection and destruction of vampires as well as garlic as a deterrent. They are also responsible for the gaunt, fanged and generally twisted appearance of – say – Nosferatu.

From there, the path leads to actually intellectual debate in Western Europe. An official statement was signed by Austrian government official, surgeon Johannes Fluckinger, on January 7, 1732. That paper documented vampire hunting, the burning of corpses in Serbia and the murders committed by a man named Arnold Paul who raved that he was bitten by one of these creatures. The statement was published in several periodicals, as an observation only - not a serious study or statement, and it eventually reached England were it was published in Gentleman’s Magazine in 1731.

English scholars attempted to explain these accounts scientifically – but that only served to give the general public further credence into the wild stories. The church chimed in when an Abbot named Calmet wrote a treatise recounting the Arnold Paul story. That made the stories of vampires very well known. Then Polidori wrote the short story The Vampire, which in often inaccurately attributed to Byron, based on the Calmet report and Arnold Paul. Polidori created the character Lord Ruthven and Stoker used that and Vlad as inspiration for Dracula.

That's pretty much the origin of the modern literature version of the vampire.

[noob3]

this thread? it got gay. really gay

to tell you guys the truth i thought this movie was going to be about zombies

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Ya reading, history and education are really gay.

[Emu]

It's gay when it's about vampires, yeah. It's in the same realm as, say, going out into the internet and finding an extremely scholarly discussion about the origin of dragons and their evolution from Launcelot du Lake to Spyro, but you're still talking about dragons.

[Grislygus]

As if I can help it, I love this shit. Fortunately, nobody ever goes to our local theater unless it's a movie like 300 or Harry Potter, so I was the only person at the 10:20 showing.

Critics bitching about this movie being nothing more than people trying to escape vampires reminds me of people bitching about 1941 being nothing more than a slapstick comedy. It was a cool, no-frills little horror, and I'm glad I'm not the only person that was reminded of Near Dark.

This is my favorite critic complaint, though.

Somewhere in the gloom are two sheriffs (Josh Hartnett and Melissa George), who - in the laborious "let's do a back story" bit are said to be feuding lovers whose. . .


How the fuck is ten minutes of backstory before an hour and fifty minutes of paranoid bloodletting laborious?

[noob3]

education? vampires are not educational man - i don't know when some sort of blood sucking monster turned the tides of history

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

What? Jesus, I guess ignorance is bliss.
Understanding where something comes from is at the root of appreciation.

This thread is a direct result of a movie that in itself is the direct result of an Irish author's novel. It's a staple! In fact, the entire genre of horror owes a lot to Stoker and the vampire.

So ya, the tides of history have been turned by bloodsucking monsters.

[noob3]

so you're telling me this awful movie only exsists because of some awful book? man somone should have turned the tides of history & killed that irish guy :lol and then maybe we wouldnt have vampires faggin everything up

[Ant10708]

noob please shutup.