30 DAYS OF NIGHT

(2007) Ten years after its initial release - and to celebrate that it's back on Netflix streaming (yay!) - this review of one of the best damned vampire films ever made is about a film that takes the sparkle out of the undead and any chance of insipid romance out of the equation by giving you vampires at their goriest, baddest-ass selves. True creatures of the night that, at the time of this film's release, hadn't been depicted so viscerally - so wonderfully - since the brilliant Near Dark. Josh Hartnett stars as Eben Oleson, a conscientious and caring small-time sheriff in the smaller-time isolated town of Barrow, Alaska, which as the film opens is in the midst of shuttering down as the area is about to fall under thirty days of wintry darkness. Most of the pipeline workers and their families, as well as some of the other residents, are flying out as the town closes up, with maybe thirty or so staying behind ... but that's not counting the gang of vicious vampires, led by Marlow (a genuinely frightening Danny Huston), slowly making their way toward the unsuspecting town to feast and kill and leave no one alive to tell about it. Can't stress it enough, these vamps are not of the Twilight variety, and exist only in the darkest dreams of Anne Rice; they speak their own guttural language, have zero empathy for their prey - often teasing and torturing before killing - and move with unprecedented speed, strength and agility. And as Eben's town falls around him, he rallies together his teenage brother Jake (Mark Rendall) and what few fellow citizens remain (including Eben's deputy/ex-wife Stella, played by Melissa George, who was supposed to have been on the last flight out but missed it) to figure out how to either fight the nightmarish monsters ... or, somehow, survive this darkest of months until the sun can rise again. One of the best in its genre, 30 Days of Night is a thrilling, high-octane, take-no-prisoners, bloody and relentless trip to hell, with an outstanding ending that, for once in Hollywood, truly and poignantly fits the film that came before it. So brilliant. (rated R)  9/10 stars