Following my recent trend I thought I would continue to watch graphic novel based vampire movies and today I worked up the courage to watch 30 Days Of Night...
30 Days Of Night is as I understand it is a survival horror based of a mini-series of comic books written by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. Again I only had time to read the first comic before I watched the movie, but it appears that the movie at least attempts to follow the story line.
Lets jump straight to the plot, this is a franchise thick with backstory and imagination. Our story starts in Barrow, Alaska, the town "at the top of the world", just as the townspeople are preparing for a month long night, 30 days of night. The town population drops by about four hundred people as most of the residents leave for other cities. The few that stay behind are greeted by a stranger (Ben Foster) that wandered into town covered in dirt and grime, strangely after all the sled dogs were murdered. As soon as the stranger asks for a bowl of raw hamburger meat things start going downhill. Small things at first, vandalism, a couple violent deaths, a head on a stick or two, then the power goes out, and the town is plunged into total darkness. The local sheriff (Josh Hartnett) discovers the first body, or lack there of, and urges the townsfolk into their homes and to prepare their weapons, it does them little good of course as the town soon erupts into an orgie of blood and fire, you see a band of vampires has followed the stranger into town.
This franchise completely redesigned the classic vampire. Gone are the suave, romantic bloodsuckers, these vampires are the ultimate apex predator, six times faster and stronger than a human, with a mouth full of razor sharp fangs and claws sharp enough to punch through a skull. This I believe is the closest a vampire can get to reality. These vampires led by Marlow (Danny Huston) are more than a match for a town of a hundred and fifty humans, and now that the sun has set the town is theirs for 30 days. All survivors have to risk it all just to last the month.
As I sit here stirring coffee and cream into my sugar I realize that the movie isn't about the vampires, its about human nature, about sacrifices and the lengths of which we will go to protect those we love. Throughout the movie the characters are forced to put aside their lives and push themselves to the limit just to survive, when their friends and family are dead or undead is when they find their strength. It takes a bit to see past the darkness and find the moral of the story, but the darkness is what makes the movie.
Darkness, yes, as the title states the sun has set, turning the town into a veritable hell, the dark sky and pure white snow are often contrasted beautifully by the stunning red of blood and fire, brightening what is otherwise a bland colour palette. The acting is refreshingly believable and for I never quite figured out if the film was completely CGI or if the picture was just that sharp even on my horribly old SD TV.
My final judgement is that the acting was near top notch, the characters were believable, the vampires were fresh and the plot was thick enough to create a beautifully complex story, so pick it up but make sure you leave the lights on...
In a post-apocalyptic world, a savage war between man and vampire has raged for centuries. A warrior priest receives word of fresh attacks, but now its personal; his niece has been kidnapped by a new hive of merciless vampires. To save her, he must break his vow of peace and hunt down the hive before its too late. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel and packed with bloodthirsty action, this full throttle crusade takes you on the hunt for a deadly new breed of killer.
Priest, like all movies based off of graphic novels, it does so loosely, which may be disappointing to some viewers but it allows for unbiased opinions of both the film and series of novels. Rather than get in depth with the differences between them lets just say you don't have to see one before the other but rather see/read both of them if you have the time.
Those of you with two brain cells to rub together have figured out that I enjoyed the movie, I didn't see it in theaters and truthfully have only read the first volume of the series, but that doesn't mean it is without flaws...
So Priest, a movie directed by Scott Stewart, is based (loosely as stated) on a Korean comic series of the same name. The plot is as follows; since the beginning of time, or shortly there after, humanity has waged a war with vampires. Not your run of the mill vampires, I would say somewhat a middle ground between the Underworld vampire and the 30 Days of Night vampire. "The eyes are the window to the soul" as some say and due to the fact that vampires are born without eyes they are said to have no soul, so they are hunted. I guess you could almost say that this is a retelling of our own history when we ran the native Americans to near extinction and put them in reserves, well the same thing has been done to vampires, but only with the help of the priests. The Priests are a sect of chosen warriors trained by the church in the deadly arts and raised with a healthy hatred for all things fangey, the are the sole reason humanity won the war but after the war they were disbanded and sworn to peace. The Priests were ordered to return to human ways and sought employment but had no skills for anything but warfare, thus they got low level jobs and fade into history. Oh yes did I mention that the war between races has destroyed the very earth? Well yeah, the cities of the past stand as grim reminders of humanities folly in a never-ending desert of pain and sacrifice, while the majority of the world has hidden behind the walls surrounding church governed cities.
So vampires, rise from the reserves and kill (SPOILER ALERT) Paul Bettany's character's brother and his wife, before kidnapping their daughter and galavanting away on a train full of an army of vampires and assorted cutlery. I was actually quite surprised when the movie turned out to have a couple plot twists, I was expecting a straight forward hack and slash adventure that would sit on my DVD shelf and collect dust and hatred. It turns out that before he was inducted into the Priests, the main character actually had time to have a child, whom he had to sacrifice along with his lover to a life of warfare and servitude. It creates a small amount of sympathy towards the protagonist and builds a more complex plot line, and I think Paul Bettany pulled it off rather well. The other characters however were a whole other story, some lines seemed false even forced, I mean it was obvious acting, I wouldn't have been surprising if they had been reading the script off of cue cards.
Actors aside, lets hit the visuals. I was satisfied with the camera angles and CGI, but there were quite a few slow motion shots that left me wondering why they even bothered wasting the money. Sure slow it down so we can see how he guts the hive guardian, but trying to create emotion with a two second slow motion shot when the daughter and sheriff kiss didn't work. Another criticism, the characters rarely had actual names, the protagonist and antagonist seemed just labels, I mean Priest and Black Hat? Thats not even worth hiring writers for, its like they just used the short forms off the script and ran with it. Also it seemed they stole a little bit of everything with this movie, Black Hat was an exact copy of Jericho cross from Deathwatch, as well as the trains, they even stole the scene when the damsel in distress hides the table knife in her sleeve.
All in all Priest had an interesting back story, tasty action sequences, a palatable score, and one thing I love, a post apocalyptic earth. Although it was hard not to miss the overused slo-mo, questionable acting, and trademark violations. This is at most a buy at least a download, Cory Goodman next time focus on reading not writing. If you enjoyed this for its post apocalyptic setting and bible toting then check out the Book of Eli, if you loved the vampire action then watch the Underworld Series and if you were left completely disappointing than maybe the comics will redeem the franchise.
As I sit here stirring coffee and cream into my sugar I realize that the movie isn't about the vampires, its about human nature, about sacrifices and the lengths of which we will go to protect those we love. Throughout the movie the characters are forced to put aside their lives and push themselves to the limit just to survive, when their friends and family are dead or undead is when they find their strength. It takes a bit to see past the darkness and find the moral of the story, but the darkness is what makes the movie.
