Well there isn't enough room to put who sings that lovely song, so its by Sufjan Stevens.
I had a bad movie experience this weekend when I went to see 30 Days of Night. I have to give them credit, the previews looked pretty awesome. A unique new tale on the classic vampire story. It's one of the few movies that I actually wanted to see this year when it came out since scary movies are usually better in a crowded theatre.
Speaking of which, I'm not too keen on crowded theaters. I like to have my space to stretch out and put my feet on the chairs in front of me. The most frustrating part is when the lights are out and a wave of people come in looking for seats. My buddy and I had a chair in between us with two open seats on each side when three seat-less movie goers swung by our row, the fifth from the top.
They stood there in the darkness just looking at us, all the while we kept our eyes fixated on the uninteresting previews on the big screen. I could feel their glares piercing my skin and for a moment I almost felt sorry for them. Never the less they found a seat on the third row from the bottom. I mean, if they had asked me to move I would have, but I'm not about to give my seat up to some random schlubs who don't have the balls to speak up. I also would have gladly offered to move if it was a group of hot sorority girls, but they weren't, it was just a non-attractive lady, her BF, and playing the role of the tripod was one of the boyfriends friend. Awkward to say the least.
Anyway, during the previews I remember being upset because they all sucked. Beowulf is the only one I remember off the top of my head, and it was super lame. Grendel looks to be entirely CGI and Grendels mama is played by the tempting Angelina Jolie, which is probably the only redeeming feature of the movie. There was also some comedy that they put up right before the movie started, which really screwed up the flow of the beginning of the movie.
So the movie started with a caption saying something about the northernmost town in the US in Alaska, and how one month of the year it has no light. I felt this wasn't needed, but it was the beginning of the story and I was still pumped from that commercial where that vampire is all like "God?...No God!"
So the screen pans out on an icy plane with some stranger walking in the snow. I have one problem with this, at the time I assumed he was a vampire, but hes not, and theres no way he could have survived in the wilderness like that.
Fast forward a bit through some stupid scenes setting up for a dramatic ending between Josh Harnett and his ex-wife and the ??? starts to hit the fan.
This was the best part of the movie. The vampires tactically shut the town down by taking out the power generator and the phone lines. Very smart, and a nice concept that the vampires will work together to take down an entire town.
At this point I thought the movie was going to slow down a bit, but low and behold it goes from 15-70mph in under two minutes. In the blink of an eye all the vampires start attacking the helpless townsfolk. Crashing through windows, blood splattering everywhere, useless guns are fired at the vampires, who take it in stride and rip the necks out of the person who shot them.
Very nice, approached much like a zombie movie. The vampires also looked wicked awesome. Like normal people, until they start feeding and their animal features protrude. The lead vampire in particular looked very nice for the role. Calm and collected, wise, but extremely deadly in his own right.
At one point they do an aerial view of the war going on between the vampires and the humans and it was really sick. There were bodies everywhere with patches of blood surrounding the victims, blasts from firearms going off, vampires lunging themselves at people.
The problem?
It all happened in the first 30 minutes of the film. I honestly thought it would be better if they just ended on a high note, everyone in the town dies, done deal.
Nope, they drag the movie on for more than an hour, and it can easily be summarized in one simple paragraph.
Josh Harnett saves a group from the diner by taking them to a hidden attic. They get ballsy for no reason and lose a few on the way to another place where they think they'll be safe. With his wife in danger from being burned alive by the vampires who dump oil on the city, Harnett injects vampire blood from his best friend who was turned into a vampire to become strong enough to distract them long enough for his ex-wife to run away from underneath a truck (Yeah, that bad). Miraculously he kills the lead vampire by punching him through the mouth in a final dramatic fight scene, then dies in the arms of his ex-wife as the sun comes up, burning him to a crisp.
The stupidest part of all this is that the ex-wife WAS IN NO DANGER!!! At the end of the movie it shows the town burnt down, and the truck she was under was completely untouched.
All in all a very promising beginning turned to poo. Don't see the movie. Not worth it.
-Sanchez
