30 Days of Night
The most northerly permanently inhabited human outpost on the polar coast of Alaska, when the winter sun sets on the town of Barrow it does not rise again, remaining beneath the horizon and placing the town in a permanent state of twilight to full dark, only around a third of the population remaining while the rest relocate, Sheriff Eben Oleson and his small team anticipating the usual difficulties with the hardy people who are set in their ways.
Unaware his estranged wife Stella is in town until she calls to ask for help getting to the airport to catch the last flight, other more immediate concerns surface, a cache of destroyed satellite phones found, all the sled dogs slaughtered, comms at the oil refinery sabotaged, the town fully cut off from the outside world as a dishevelled stranger arrives and is promptly arrested, herald of other newcomers who have come to feast through the long night.
Based on the 2002 comic miniseries of the same name, written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Ben Templesmith, originally pitched as a movie outline, it was not until 2007 that 30 Days of Night arrived on the screen, directed by Dark Harvest’s David Slade from a screenplay adapted by Niles, Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson, the latter Slade’s collaborator on his 2005 debut Hard Candy.
Starring The Faculty’s Josh Hartnett as the affable Eben and Triangle’s Melissa George as Stella, the nameless stranger is Pandorum’s Ben Foster, essentially playing a Renfield role, infiltrating and acting as the herald of doom for the master to whom he is in thrall, though quite how an outsider on the cusp of malnutrition managed to locate and purloin all the satellite phones in the town, kill all the dogs and sabotage the helicopter is unclear.
Arriving with mesmerising and magnificent malevolence, The Kreutzer Sonata’s Danny Huston is the leader of the vampires who have come to prey, shockingly fact, insanely strong and without any hint of mercy, communicating in their own language of screeches and clicks but devoid of any humanity, apparently impervious to injury and requiring dismembering or full decapitation to stop them.
Named Marlow in the original text which expands the history of the Nosferatu, 30 Days of Night is a film of extended sequences of undeniable brilliance, grim and horrifying, of an overwhelming enemy which cannot be negotiated with or destroyed, utterly isolated from the rest of the world or any chance of escape or help arriving, but beyond the blood on the snow taken as a whole the film is flawed by the very premise on which it is built.
Spanning a month (though only days 1, 7, 18 and 27 are shown) what happens in the interim? Hiding in an attic in Alaskan winter with no provisions or heating, how are they not only alive but perfectly groomed, not one hair out of place and no unkempt beards despite not having showered in a month? Why, when an industrial facility has been out of contact for a month has nobody come to investigate? The continuity perfect for continuous action, had the whole taken a single night the narrative would actually flow better.
Scanned in 4K 16bit colour depth, the new edition of 30 Days of Night is supported by an archive commentary from Hartnett, George and producer Rob Tapert, new interviews with Slade, Niles, composer Brian Reitzell and actor Mark Rendall (Eben’s baby brother Jake) and a comprehensive eight part documentary chronicling the entire production which, rather than Alaska, principally took place in New Zealand.
30 Days of Night is available on 4K UHD Steelbook, Blu-ray and DVD from Icon now
