Movie Info
Movie Name: 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
Studio: Dark Horse Entertainment
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): July 23, 2010 (Comic Con)/October 5, 2010 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
Do you guys need any towels…aw crap…
Stella Oleson (Kiele Sanchez) has survived the vampire massacre in Barrow but now is struggling to convince the existence of vampires. When Stella is contacted by a group of vampire hunters, Stella learns that the vampires are on the move again. With Barrow in their sites again, Stella and the vampire hunters must stop a ship bound for Alaska and the vampire cargo onboard.
Directed by Ben Ketai, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days is a follow-up to the film 30 Days of Night from 2007. The film was a straight-to-DVD release and was co-written by the series creator Steve Niles. The movie received mixed reviews from critics.
I wasn’t a huge fan of 30 Days of Night. I liked the general concept (a great place for vampires to feast), but I though the execution was rather weak. Here you lose the concept and get a rather generic vampire hunter film.
Let the sun shine in!
The movie is like most vampire hunter movies. 30 Days of Night at least was something different and that gave the story a twist. Here, you just have an extreme group of hunters (all hurt by vampires in the past) target vampires with a master plan lead by an evil leader. It has no real hitch and with less than stellar characters, the story doesn’t really have very many directions to go.
The movie was forced to recast Melissa George who survived 30 Days of Night. Allegedly, George wanted to reprise her role but could not due to scheduling conflicts. Kiele Sanchez is fine in the title role, but doesn’t have enough back-up in a supporting cast which is mostly made up of character actors and Oz and Lost vet Harold Perrineau as one of the vampire hunters. Mia Kirshner gets the role as the queen of the vampires Lilith…but even the vampire queen does not get a very juicy role.
I loved this part in The Descent!
The visuals for the movie are so-so. The vampires aren’t awful but there is a certain cheapness to the movie that when added to the weak script, it cannot overcome. The ending “blood bath” scene feels very reminiscent of The Decent, but that movie is far better than 30 Days of Night.
30 Days of Night: Dark Days is a fair, but not great horror sequel to a fair but not great horror film. The movie did not end the 30 Days of Night series which continued on FearNet in two series. 30 Days of Night: Blood Trails which was a prequel to 30 Days of Night and 30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust which was a sequel to 30 Days of Night.
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