Well, I went with 30 Days of Night. A vamp movie... what a surprise
I didn't have much hope for this, given the dearth of decent vampire movies over the last few years, but this one surprised me. Not only was it glossier and better produced than I expected, but the acting was of a higher quality that you usually get in these kind of movies. The plot is based on a surprisingly effective premise; vampires arrive in a remote Alaskan town on the day that the sun disappears for a month. They send in a "renfield" to kill the town's dogs and cut off the power.
It ramps up in tension from there. It plays more like a zombie siege movie than any other vamp movie I've seen, and the vamps themselves seem to like shedding blood more than drinking it. Be warned, the gore level is quite high, and nice people come to extremely bloody ends, even the kiddies. And the vamps aren't lounging around being sexy. These are real bloodsucking bastards, and all the better for it.
Josh Hartnett is still a work in progress as an actor, but he's better here than I've seen him in anything else, probably because he's mostly reacting to dramatic events rather than trying to portray anyone too complex. Still, with this he's proved he can carry a movie, and I think we'll be seeing more of him in action roles soon.
Like most horror movies, it suffers from several "lets do something -really- stupid" moments, but the whole thing is done with enough style and pace to get you through them without too much shouting at the screen. I particularly liked the overhead panning shots as the vamps took the town apart.
In all, I enjoyed it. It was only later that I started to ask questions, like why the vamps wasted so much blood, and where they got their language skills, why they avoided the big utilities building with all the lights on, and where they went to after the final confrontation. But those are just quibbles.
It's gone back on the shelf to be watched again, and that doesn't happen with many horror movies these days.
