30 Days of Night--In Conclusion

Concluding this weekly write-up on 30 Days of Night, I wanted to finish with some final thoughts and images from the film.

While I did kind of criticize the excessive method of shooting the cast up close (I love and prefer directors who emphasize the environment and characters within them, and I always enjoyed capturing those in an extensive frame conversing together instead of the insistence on shooting the face shot of each actor talking) because I think the director fails to let us take in people and place (opting to save money by not doing a lot of set ups and intentionally going for a locomotive pace and ADD mentality where we aren’t able to settle in), I do think in the case of 30 Days of Night there are such a great set of faces that any filmmaker would take advantage of if given the chance. Even members of the cast that aren’t really principle figures that truly factor into the overall plot have these faces that leap off the screen, I thought.

 

Foster is used to diffuse the town by cutting off communication and power; this is to freeze out their prey and alleviate any chance of that cry for help.

Foster looks like he was dragged out of the woods after months of being in hiding. He’s filthy, unshaven, anti-social, intense, quietly evoking bottled rage, and has teeth in need of a good cleaning. He’s presented perfectly because it is indicating he has been through hell and as a tool for a race of monsters planning to feed from those Foster encounters prior to their arrival one can only surmise through his look and behavior the horrors this guy has already (and been through). To punctuate the eventual slaughter is the preparation process. Show someone who has seen already what the monsters are capable of by previewing one of their victims, still left alive to do their bidding (to “scout” for them, and to be a type of premonition of what lies ahead) and to inform us of what should be dreaded. There’s this whole “I know something you don’t know” look on Foster’s face. A smile while he’s in jail after nearly causing an altercation with a diner owner and Hartnett speaks volumes on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The film establishes a small band of survivors holing up in an attic as the vampires in Barrow look for remaining human pork chops. One of the group is an elderly man with dementia so it is a given he’ll eventually cause disruption. Escape out a window while his son follows after him, with the numbers dwindling even further.

 

30 Days of Night is no different than the zombie genre when it comes to the shock value of the child turned into a monster. When the motley group of Barrow survivors (led by Hartnett and George) decide to brave inclement weather (quite a blizzard brewing) to raid the local grocery for supplies to keep them well past the heavy winter storm passing through, they encounter a little girl vampire gnawing away on a human feast. I was thinking the kids in Dawn of the Dead and the little girl at the opening of The Walking Dead when the vampire in 30 Days of Night turns to attack a Barrow resident not expecting her to go full-on-assault. I am not a big fan of “frenzy cam” but in this case, I think it was wise to avoid on screen ax violence towards her. I’m not that fond of child violence so explicit action including a little girl suffering a decapitation never shown in detail didn’t bother me.

Something I thought was especially well done was the uneasy use of an ax to kill someone/something. Horror films have a tendency to tell us that one singular chop to the neck takes the head right off, but 30 Days of Night dispels this by showing the difficulty (and exhaustive efforts) it takes to decapitate/kill with the ax. Hartnett looks winded and sometimes exasperated after having to use the ax to finish off vampires. I like how even using the ax leaves a devastating impact on those who must see it in use even on vampires who had laid waste to their town.

I think Hartnett is very good in this film and the plot asks us to accept him as a protector and guide through the worst possible danger that could happen to people he’s elected to defend and keep safe. When he loses folks you see the anguish. When he must kill those he cares about to keep them from turning into vampires, the torment of such action is right there on his face. I think it is important that he doesn’t go through the motions but lets us know that this situation is grave and serious, very much inherent in his reaction and emotions. George is the other actor asked to parlay the horror of what her and her people suffer. Huston speaks in a dialect unknown to us. I liked that his kind is given their own tongue, their own language. Huston has authority and command and when he speaks, those who follow him listen and act accordingly. There’s a power and intensity that Huston has needed for a leader who has left villages in ruin and fed from populace after populace. He doesn’t appear to be the kind of vampire who integrates within society but uses a human mutt to sniff out new locations before attacking them.

 So 30 Days of Night is in essence a siege film where humans try to outlast those wanting to kill them. The sun is their salvation but they must wait for it patiently. The film indicates on occasion the passage of time. Day 7. Day 18. A beard on Hartnett’s face. Chapped lips. Discolored faces. Hints of steady starvation. While the film may not necessarily feel like a film that takes place over an extended period, the filmmakers attempt to convince us otherwise.

I am a little wishy-washy on Hartnett doing so well in battle against the vampires once he sacrifices himself for George. Okay, so he “evens the playing field” by “making the change” through an act of selfless heroism to save George and a child, but why does he all of a sudden seem as equal to Huston as he does? Ultimately he takes advantage of a rather stupid decision by Huston to leap at him without much thought in how vulnerable he leaves himself, but why the remaining vampires just fall away and exit baffled me. He took away their master, so why wouldn’t they retaliate? Well, the image of a town in flames (Huston sets a snare that entraps George under a truck while Hartnett must give up his life in exchange for her rescue) is rather cool, with Huston and his undead brood standing en masse awaiting Hartnett providing quite an image.

 commend the ending. It circumvents the happy ending. While Hartnett might best Huston and salvage after all that had been lost, it comes with a steep price he was willing to pay. George’s pain is potent and Hartnett’s final adieu is agonizing. But he was willing to go all the way and his love for George is palpable and admirable.