The original "30 Days of Night" was an original movie with an excellent cast, director, script, and special effects. It wasn't "Jaws," but it was very well done. All in all, a really good horror/vampire movie. Then the powers that be in Hollywood decided to make a sequel. There are the few obvious exceptions, but sequels generally are terrible. This movie is no different. The characters are cardboard cutouts of "Generic Horror Movie Characer 1," 2, 3, etc. The monsters are equally generic and uninteresting. Everybody lives in "stupid world" and would have a hard time crossing the street in real life. There was not even a surprising or twist ending. I have seen better drama, acting and terror in a high school play. The only reason I did not give this one star, is that I have seen the truly great bad movies. If you are looking for something "so bad it's good," you will still be sadly disappointed. It is not even funny to mock. If you want to see a good vampire flick, catch the original or "Near Dark" or "Blood and Donuts." Heck, watch anything which shows either talent or enthusiasm, but do not watch this. It is just sad.
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goblinsoldier7 October 2010
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claudio_carvalho17 October 2010After the destruction and rebuilding of Barrow, Alaska, Stella Oleson (Kiele Sanchez) misses her beloved husband Eben and spends her time giving lectures uncovering the truth about the incident in Barrow and the existence of vampires to the world, following the lead of the unknown Dane. In Los Angeles, Stella uses ultraviolet lights in the auditorium to expose the vampires to the audience but the FBI Agent Norris (Troy Ruptash) tells that the incident was a hoax. When Stella returns to the motel where she is lodged, she meets Paul (Rhys Coiro), Todd (Harold Perrineau) and Amber (Diora Baird) that are vampire hunters and leans that Agent Norris is a wannabe vampire and the vampire leader Lilith (Mia Kirshner) is in the city and ready to return to Alaska. Further, she finds that Dane (Ben Cotton) is a vampire that has kept humanity after his transformation and wants to destroy Lilith. Stella joins the quartet that is armed and ready to battle against the evil vampires.
"30 Days of Night: Dark Days" is an implausible sequel of 2007 "30 Days of Night". The incoherent screenplay has many flaws and poorly explains why the group fights with the vampires in suicidal attacks, either on the pitch black of the underground of Los Angeles or in a ship during the night. In the first film, the strength and the speed of the vampires were absurd and now the human can be protected behind a steel door. Kiele Sanchez performs Stella Oleson that was originally performed by Melissa George, and the scene of her final fight with Lilith is a rip-off of "The Descent". The conclusion is ridiculous and with the only intention of giving another sequel. My vote is five.
Title (Brazil): "30 Dias de Noite 2" ("30 Days of Night 2") -
soapofnature8 October 2010I can see the next movie in the trilogy, 100,000 screaming and furious people chasing down the director and producer of this turd to get their money back.
More seriously, as a fan of the first film, I was as disappointed as I've ever been by any movie after watching this. During the first film, I actually felt emotion while watching. I felt the sudden jolts of shock and fear of course, but I felt more than that. I felt the hopelessness and despair of the characters trapped in their terrible and inescapable nightmare. I actually FELT their desperation. It was fantastic. As far as I'm concerned the original 30 Days of Night is the only vampire HORROR film ever made.
This Dark Days is a Frankenstein creation of hacked up and reassembled modern day vampire movies (that weren't very good in the first place) This could as easily be Blade 5 or Underworld 4 or Vampires 3 , I was half waiting for everyone to start kung-fu fighting.
This was as much a horror as a pie in the face is comedy. I'm sorry. I wanted to like this, and there were so many possibilities to take this after the original, obviously whoever owned it just wanted to try and make some money by releasing something with the 30 Days of Night name attached to it. There is zero writing. The ending sucked. Not because it was predictable, it just sucked like the entire film. And yes another female character undergoes the Ripley / Sarah Connor transformation.
Does anyone ever have an original thought? To all writers, I'm over it. Pick a new theme for every single sequel. Get a new formula, whatever. It's done - like a Thanksgiving turkey. OK? In short the original blew me away, and this just blew. Hope this saves you some money. Jackie -
bluestemz20 November 2010Unlike the original, which relied on a tense, cunning, isolated, claustrophobic atmosphere which threw me back to that feeling of hopelessness conveyed in John Carpenter's The Thing, this shoot 'em up sequel focuses more on strobe lighting, gun play, and pop out scares to convey it's tone. The acting is on par with a STV sequel, but I won't even begin to touch upon the scripts many weaknesses. The many shaky cam shots running down dark corridors could have been lifted out of The Blair Witch Project. The trigger happy heroine in this sequel could have been lifted straight from the Resident Evil franchise. All-in-all not a bad vampire movie on it's own, but not a great one either. Worth a rent in the genre for you could do much worse, but if you are a fan of the original and expecting more of the same ... well, drop all expectations and wipe your brain blank once you press play.
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p-stepien6 January 2011Stella (this time around portrayed by the anonymous Kiele Sanchez) is one of the few survivors of the Barrow Massacre. News and media sold the events their as a tragic oil-rig accident. This pushes Stella into a crusade for truth, where she roams the country holding seminars about what really happened during the Alaskan darkness. At one such event she decides to out the vampires by turning on ultraviolet lights, which kill a couple of night-stalkers, but also cause havoc and mayhem amongst the viewers. Stella is soon whisked away by the FBI and one agent Norris (Troy Ruptash), who seems to know too much about the vampire threat. Soon released she is confronted by a group of vampire hunters, who enlist her to kill Lilith, apparently the head-honcho bloodsucker.
Loosely based on the follow-up graphic novel of the same name it follows the exploits of Stella. But this time around the film increasingly moves away from the origin material and in doing so quickly losing the intricate planning of the novel. Hence the rushed, unfinished feel of the whole movie, where even actors seem incoherent, erratic and chaotic. In certain scenes the mix of sub-par acting capacity and bad scriptwriting makes the characters run a slalom between panic, drama, heroism, laughter and stoicism, where within a matter of seconds emotions change drastically.
Everything about this movie reeks of quick fixes and short cuts, not enough is done to build atmosphere, storyline or characters themselves. Even more irritatingly the only character that is even remotely recognisable and at the same time likable is killed off within the first vampire hunt (Todd played by Harold Perrineau). I would also like to add that given this was supposed to be a bunch of seasoned killers the whole sequence of the hunt was exceptionally badly scripted.
In the end even the small homage to the original novel does not dispose of the bad taste left over lingering in your mouth. On the plus side the SFX crew did a good job and it never felt like a film working on a shoe-string budget. -
ESXTony21 October 2010The original film surprised me as it was much better than I thought it would be - cheesy in places but the Vampires themselves were quite disturbing and by far the best I had seen for a few years in any Vampire film. Unfortunately, in this follow up they lose all of the menace they had first time around, they don't even speak in their 'native' tongue and it becomes an all too familiar standard modern day Vamp flick. The characters don't endear themselves at all, the acting isn't great and the special effects are OK at best. It's a shame as they had the chance to make another film that was a little different from the standard rubbish around today...True Blood, Twilight etc but they failed pretty miserably. It's watchable I suppose but you'll feel slightly let down at the end of it all.
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registered-2420 October 2010Oh the pain... I am such a fan of movies...and of vampire movies as a genre. This movie offends me as a movie fan AND as a vampire movie fan!
30 Days of Night (the original) was a very fun watch. I was excited to see that a sequel was made. Less excited to see that it was straight to DVD, and even less excited to see none of the original actors. I would compare it to the first movie, but that would be an injustice. Plus, the first movie had a relatively tight script, great to decent acting, a PLOT that made sense and dialogue reminiscent of actual human speech. Also, one of my favorite things to find in movies: characters that act within the realm of the suspension of disbelief!
This sequel (groan) has none of the above. HERE BE SPOILERS!!! From the ridiculous vampire hunters that hunt AT NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES??? to Stella and her weird attempt to bring out vampires with her meetings and then sleeping soundly in a motel, to taking on vampires with a couple guns knowing "they only slow them down" in TEE SHIRTS???. What???? And why NO ONE USES THE UV lights as weapons en masse...I don't know. I could go on...but there's way too much and it will be light soon.
if you are hungry for recent vampire movies that don't make sense, this is perfect. Otherwise, I'd go rewatch a classic vamp movie...even blade 2 or 3 again with the time this movie will waste.
I really wish I could see what the positive reviewers got out of this "movie"....the acting and script still make me gasp!
Please please Hollywood...watch before you print and release! btw, I gave a "2" because there were some good camera angles and lighting efforts.
sorry,
Looking for my Near Dark DVD -
mdarmocida2 October 2010The first movie was sooo good that I figured the sequel had to at least be decent - boy was I wrong. The production values are OK but the only thing this had in common with the first movie was the lead character. The vampires were almost like different creatures compared to those in the first movie and the story itself was so boring that I couldn't take it anymore and stopped watching three quarters of the way through. Like I said the production values and acting was OK, and usually I only reserve one star for those really cheap movies that look like they were shot in someones basement; so normally a movie like this would rate at least two stars from me. But any movie that's so boring that I can't sit through it only gets a star.
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edumacated23 September 2010this sequel follows an original that featured a decent budget and some very good actors.
and this, the first sequel, follows the pattern of most. that is as you move farther from the original, the budget shrinks.
and the consequences are: less sets, less location shoots, less action, no helicopter or overhead shots, cheaper actors, cheaper scripts and cheaper directors.
now some directors can take less money and turn out comparable or even better efforts than the original--but these are few and far between.
and this movie definitely suffers from sequelitis.
the whole thing feels stretched. -
rick2003312 October 2010Even though I've checked the spoilers box, I won't reveal anything about the ending of the movie. This movie is so bad that I registered with IMDb just so I could say so. It abandons everything about the first movie that made that movie great. The vampires are the standard Hollywood type and are not remotely intimidating. There isn't a character in the whole film that I cared about or was concerned would die, and when someone did die I didn't care. The setting of the movie is LA, not Alaska (so, there is no "30 days of night in the film"). There is a completely out-of-nowhere PG-level sex scene (and no, fanboys, it doesn't involve Diora Baird. You will not see her naked in this movie, so that's a professional victory for her, at least). The main character makes a decision that is so unbelievable and so idiotic that it is impossible to believe she would make it, and especially impossible to believe the same character from the FIRST movie would make it.
I've liked Kiele Sanchez since "The Perfect Getaway", and Harold Perrineau since being introduced to him on "Lost." And I think Diora Baird can probably act, too, if given the chance. They all need to avoid movies like this.
The first movie had me on the edge of my seat, in awe of the shark-like, cruel monsters that swept into a remote Alaskan town. This movie had me shaking my head in disbelief that whoever made it didn't understand the first movie at all. "Blair Witch 2" was a masterpiece compared to this. "Alien 3" was less of a betrayal of "Aliens" than this movie is to its predecessor. For those people who loved "30 Days of Night", avoid this movie. -
Did you see Lost boys? Or Twilight? Or even The queen of the damned? Well, this one is more interesting and the vampires are really bad, not babies, Kens or Carnival girls. I like it. I recommend. Well, it's not a super movie, but it's far more than OK. Vampires are a mythology, and the movie 30 days of night is a good job. This sequel is full of good scenes. I love the sex showed and the end is very good. Soon will be a third one, I hope. I imagine if Blade or Underworld could be this realistic. Please, if you did not see this movie yet because of the critics, don't. The cinematography and the photography are so cool, the costumes, the actors and the deaths pay for the DVD.
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Please keep in mind that I gave the original 30 Days of Night 7 out of 10. I really enjoyed it, but wouldn't exactly call it ground-breaking. I loved the atmosphere of it. I also appreciated the fact that they didn't rely too heavily on CGI, like the cartoon vamps that were over- used in I Am Legend (released at roughly the same time).
IMDb have already supplied a synopsis, so I'm just giving my review. Sadly Melissa George is not involved. If she was, Dark Days might have received a theatrical release and I might have given it an extra star. Nevertheless, this flick certainly has its moments. You just have to accept Kiele Sanchez in Melissa's role. She does an adequate job. Obviously Josh Hartnett isn't in it, but his character is still very much present in essence and there are still some other familiar actors amongst the cast. I'm a big fan of Mia Kirshner who plays a demonic, Bathory-like queen of the damned and Harold Perrineau (Matrix 2 & 3, 28 Weeks Later, TV's LOST & OZ) who has a rather interesting part to play. I don't want to spoil it. The blood and gore factor is pretty much equal to it's predecessor. There are some very creative methods of liquidizing a vampires skull to ensure that it's really dead. Once again they don't over-rely on CGI.
You'll be pleased to know that the creators of the original comic book series are involved with this straight-to-DVD sequel. I'm not familiar with the comics, but I know enough to guarantee you a 30 Days of Night Trilogy. This isn't just a sequel for the sake of it. Further installments were always inevitable. See also "Blood Trails" and "Dust to Dust".
Essentially, this a worthy follow-up. It's got enough cool bits to keep your attention for 90 mins. All you have to do is accept that Melissa was either too busy filming "The Triangle" or simply felt that the project was beneath her. Then again, it's probably best to save it for Tight-Arse Tuesday or to round out your package deal. I'm predicting that Dark Days will be more popular than the impending Lost Boys 3. I know that's not saying much.
Check out my IMDb List for some better suggestions. "HORROR/THRILLER: Obscure, Overlooked & Underrated" http://www.imdb.com/list/8QFZ78e4Ar8/ -
Scarecrow-888 October 2010Kiele Sanchez assumes Melissa George's role in this sequel where we find Stella Oleson moving on from Alaska to Los Angeles as the vampires return to rip apart more humans at night in the dark. Stella tries to warn people, and, of course, is considered crazy, until one particular meeting when sunlights she has rigged reveal vampires among a crowded auditorium of citizens, burning alive right before their very eyes, resulting in a frightened stampede. Stella, however, gains allies who have lost loved ones to the vampires and the four of them decide to go a hunting. There is a "queen" of the vampires named Lilith(Mia Kirshner, born to play a head vampiress) who has built a nest in tunnels underneath LA. A vampire named Dane(Ben Cotton), who has somehow retained his humanity, will help them find and hopefully destroy Lilith so that her network of bloodsuckers will fall apart ending their threat to the human race. Stella is obviously reluctant to follow the orchestrated plan of a vampire, and she has little faith in such a small group walking into the lair of Lilith to destroy her. But, with no home to go back to, without anyone believing her story about the deaths of those in Barrow, Alaska, Stella will join forces with these three and the four of them will head into the tunnels after Lilith, prepared with enough weaponry for a war. When this backfires and one among their group is killed, the remaining three will have to reorganize, finding out through the information of a vampire they torture that Lilith plans another night siege on Barrow. The eventual plan becomes simple, find the ship which will carry a whole gaggle of vampires, and destroy it before Lilith can leave.
Harold Perrineau(OZ)has a small part as one of the trio who wishes for Stella to join his group. Rhys Coiro(as Paul)and Diora Baird(as Amber)are the other two who have lost and now hunt the undead savages. Katharine Isabelle(GINGER SNAPS)has a very small part as a tragic victim of Agent Norris(Troy Ruptash), a dying human desperately wanting Lilith to turn him. Somewhat effective direct-to-DVD sequel has its moments, although the climax(a decision Stella makes in regards to dead husband Eben)is preposterous, not to mention the vampires are a bit different than those in the previous film. Kirshner, with those black eyes and mouth full of sharp teeth, is quite stunning as the vamp leader, although her final showdown with Stella is a bit disappointing. The ultra-violence does the trick, you get neck ripping, bloodletting, bodies torn asunder by machine guns, vampires disintegrating by sunlight in gruesome fashion, beheadings, and a face is bashed in with a cinder block. Pretty steamy sex scene between Sanchez and Coiro, although its executed without nudity. My main beef is that the whole point of "30 Days of Night" is the Alaskan setting and the idea of having no escape through sunlight to help you. I would've seriously dug this film a lot more if the filmmakers had decided to follow the heroes into the tunnels a little longer..alas, this is not the case. And, for some reason, the vampires just aren't as scary or ferocious as in the original movie. -
Well, I hope that Steve Niles, co-creator of the 30 Days of Night comic book, got what Kevin Smith would call a "motherf***ing movie check" out of this misfiring mess. If Hollywood is going to take your baby and whore it out on Direct-to-DVD Boulevard, you at least ought to get your cut. Of course, unless he needed the money for a life-saving operation, I imagine Niles quickly regretted letting them make this sucktastic sequel. No one who creates anything can enjoy seeing someone else ruin it.
30 Days of Night wasn't a great film. It started pretty strong but got stupider and stupider as it went along and had only two redeeming features. First, it wasn't really a vampire movie. It was a natural disaster movie where the disaster happened to be an onslaught of blood sucking monsters. Second, the vamps weren't angsty poseurs in hip clothes and sexy haircuts. There were animalistic butchers who had as much in common with humans as people do with rabid grizzly bears. Not only does Dark Days not start out as strongly, it gets dumber, faster than the original and largely tosses those two good things down the garbage disposal.
A year after the attack on Barrow, Alaska, we find that the vampire massacre of the townspeople has been covered up and survivor Stella Oleson is on a book tour trying to tell incredulous crowds the truth about what happened. After Stella uses ultraviolet light to fry a couple of vamps at one of her public speeches, an FBI agent covers it all up and tells Stella to get lost or he'll kill her. Through this point of the film, it appeared like it might be halfway decent. The idea of Stella struggling against the vamps and the government that is protecting them for some reason seemed like an intelligent and interesting direction to go. So of course, that promising beginning is completely discarded before Dark Days is 10 minutes old and it turns into every other vampire hunter flick you've ever seen that doesn't star a teenage cheerleader. Stella hooks up with 3 other survivors of vamp attacks, turns into a generic badass with a shotgun and goes after the vampire queen who supposedly controls everything the blood suckers do. Some music that was rejected from the Terminator: Salvation soundtrack and closing scenes that look like outtakes from Aliens top off this crap sundae.
From a gratuitous sex scene where Kiele Sanchez keeps her bra on, thereby negating the whole gratuitous thing, to a good guy vampire to the same final scene twist that got old in horror movies 20 years ago, Dark Days is terrible. Now as I mentioned, the first film wasn't exactly award winning stuff itself but this boring, clichéd, self-negating carbuncle is significantly worse in every way. There are even points where it seems like co-writer/director Ben Ketai is going out of his way to take a leak on what was established in the first film.
If you liked 30 Days of Night, do not watch this movie. If you hated 30 Days of Night, still do not watch this movie. If you've never heard of 30 Days of Night, go read the comic instead of watching this movie. -
hsknlvmtugi28 September 2010I've seen both films. While I liked the first iteration for bringing up the interesting idea that Vampires might exploit a lonesome town in Alaska where the sun won't shine for 30 days, this sequel really tries its best to underachieve at every conceivable level. First: The sound engineer needs to be slapped in the face. Hard. And I don't mean that in a comedic way. Each spoken word in "normal conversations" is so quiet that you naturally turn up the volume - only to have your ear canals blasted inside-out the very moment the next action-bit kicks in.
Then this script had to be so smelly-bad that the actress of the first part didn't want to play any part in this mess (they even re-cycled footage as another reviewer has already pointed out).
And then there are plot holes the size of Alaska... Q: At which time of the DAY (pardon the pun) do you hunt vampires? In the first part it was established that UV light is highly effective against 30DON's breed of (zombie-alien-)vampires: You saw how the hero disabled a female vampire just with some milliseconds of exposure to a greenhouse light.
In the intro of the 2nd part the heroine kills 3 vampires in her auditorium by using artificial sun-light...
Q: How do you dodge light, again?
Yet, those supposedly "pro" vampire hunters pack assault rifles, submachine-guns and pistols which they have to admit "won't take vampires out"... If this doesn't spell stupidity, what does? If all you need is a battery and a bunch of UV lights fixed to your clothes in order to get 360° coverage (or a "light-armor", if you will). Heck, you don't even have to learn how to shoot weapons. Just connect the cables, make sure the batteries are charged, press the ON-button and enter the vampire's lair... but no, I guess that would be too logical and easy... killing vampires isn't fun if they don't get a chance to bite you up-close...
Which leads me to the next question: We have seen that simply swallowing vampire blood turns you into one of them... (nice mix-up with zombies BTW) Q: Why doesn't the heroine turn into a vampire if she gets her complete upper body and face covered in v-blood?
Then there is a climactic final battle on a ship full of vampires. (I would be surprised if the makers would know how this motif is a nod to Nosferatu). Well, at which time do the vampire hunters enter the ship? That's right! Total fücking darkness. Once again we get a chance to be amazed by their stupidity...
Q: Can you spell RPG (as in: Rocket propelled grenade)?
A single shot at an unmissable target, delivered safely at noon would have sent the whole v-mess of a ship to the ground of the ocean... but no, we have go in at midnight in order to do some more slashing...
Although the vampires depicted here seem to be animistic simpletons that rarely remember how to use tools I really wonder how they came up with a plan as ingenious as the plot behind the 1st movie. In the sequel they seem to try their best at keeping their existence a secret... which leads to my next burning question...
Q: If you are the head vampire, why would you be interested in uncontrolled population growth?
If everybody on this planet has been turned from human to vampire, how does a population of 7 billion vampires survive? The more vampires there are, the more mouths you have to feed, the harder it becomes to keep your secret - so why would you increase your v-population and therefore the danger of exposure?
Well, if you are able to cut the juice to your brain while radiating it with this kind of ill-conceived crap, heads off to you... -
terrencepatrix24 September 2010So I wasn't what you would call, a huge fan for the first 30 Days of Night movie. I hadn't read the graphic novel, but I heard the movie was a fairly accurate adaptation of it. I did enjoy it, but I felt the pacing was slow, the characters weren't very well acted or flushed out, and really for a movie...devoid of any extensive plot. It was a slow, but occasionally fun watch.
Dark Days, the straight to DVD sequel of 30DON, delivers a lot of the same, only with a smaller budget. The basic plot is as follows: Stella Oleson, one of the few survivors of the first movie (albeit played by a different actress), is out for revenge on all vampires for the death of her beloved husband Eben. She makes her way to a major city, where she holds what are essentially vampire awareness seminars as a way to draw out the occasional one or two inquisitive vampires. This catches the attention of a small pod of vampire hunters, who contact her for their crusade against the uber vampire...Lilith.
The plot really isn't too shabby, but feels very under worked in this film. The lead females' (except for Lilith who has maybe a total of 5-7 minutes screen time) have a pretty believable performance, the lead males are...eh...well they're there at least.
The special effects for a straight to DVD are actually really well done in this film, it's somewhere in between expensive made for TV movies and terrible Hollywood films that should never have made it to the big screen. Cgi isn't hokey, make-up design for the most part is pretty well done. Although the teeth prosthetic look well...well they're kind of like those fake vampire teeth you pick up in the 99c bin during Holloween. Some of the gruesome death scenes and graphic gore is done quite nicely though.
The reason I didn't really care for this movie is the pacing is just terrible. The plot doesn't have enough material to fill up an entire movie, so we get these long dull sequences that just feel like filler. The action isn't too bad, but all of it is filmed in darkness illuminated by flickering lights. The scenery is almost entirely a warehouse district, and tunnel scenes...which can easily BE shot in a warehouse, so your eyes will get bored with the sets. This combined with the sub-par acting by many individuals in this film...just made this film so very...meh.
Basically it was interesting enough that I was able to sit and finish watching it, but it's a completely forgettable film for anyone who's not a die-hard 30 DON fan. It's a fairly bland vampire action flick, personally if I were to watch it with company I'm fairly certain everyone would be too bored to finish it. -
jhpstrydom19 October 2010Our favorite people at Stage 6 films have brought us another DTV sequel this time to 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and it wasn't half bad though but it has a lousy ending, to tell you the truth the film has a great concept, the execution is actually good but not great, the acting is above par and the direction is also above average, the major turn off to this film is the twist right at the end, it was actually stupid when I really thought about it because even though it made sense and you understood the lead character's motivations the direction in which the story goes at that point is just random.
Overall, the film has reasonable production value and a good script but as for the ending I think I would've just preferred something different and this film is not really better than the first but not a weak entry either. -
overhaul3823 October 2010I enjoyed the first 30 days of night and jumped at a chance to see the sequel. Bad assumption and a definite waste of time. I don't write reviews but this one was so bad I felt the need to warn everyone. With a lot of possibilities the director went for the cheap and lazy way. The storyline is so full of implausible action it is hard to list but for example, the heroine, knowing that bullets only slow the vampires down, went into a very long dark tunnel housing dozens of vampires armed with a pump shotgun with 5 rounds. After firing the 5 rounds her only option was to run. The 3 vampire hunters that she joins are equally clueless and walks into the vampire lair with very few weapons and runs screaming and dies one by one. The ending makes no sense and leaves you saying WTF? Lets hope the makers of this turkey goes back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes.
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A_Different_Drummer9 February 2015... especially sequels done direct to video and featuring a "Bewitched" style casting change (Stella, the wife of the protagonist in 30 Days of Night, replacing Melissa George).
Looks like screenwriter Steve Niles, the only common link between the two, convinced someone (a backer? A studio? A high school film class?) to produce this sequel.
The odd thing is, it's not terrible, which really sort of a compliment.
Also, the real horror is that the same screenwriter who was clever enough and creative enough to come up with the idea of a nest of vampires turning an Alaskan town into a month-long buffet (the original movie) could do no better here than send the survivor wife on some sort of mission to wipe out all the vampires on the planet.
And, if you have ever seen a vampire movie, you KNOW that's not going to end well.
Speaking of endings, the last five minutes are astonishingly memorable for an otherwise unforgettable film. Something new, different, and totally unexpected happens. Cool.
Also worth it for Sanchez fans. As her later work in KINGDOM would show, the camera loves her, and she has a knack for stealing scenes, even when she is not trying. -
atinder6 October 2010I loved 30 Days of Night (2007) was outstanding,it was perfect.
Now to Dark Days
I think the first 5-10 minutes of the movie was really good but after that it went down hill, The Vampires did not look that scary in this movie at all and the scare scenes you can see them coming!.
The acting in this movie was NOT great, however not awful but watchable (Not as bad as The Final Destination or the Remake of A Nigthmare on elm street acting) but not far from it.
I did like a few scenes in this movie, They had some really good ideas for this but soon you will forget them when you see, the scenes near the end, (the last 15-10 minutes or so) those scenes were just laughable because it was so badly done.
now to the ending, it was just very, very, very, very Predicable! (I do seem to like at lot sequels and I do mean a lot of sequels ) This movie is worth seeing at least maybe once. but I won't be seeing this again. I may see it again when it come on TV.
30 Days of Night (2007) I gave 9 out of 10 and for 30 Days of Night: Dark Days I will give 3/4 out of 10. -
tcollins200530 October 2010I had no problem whatever with the concept of a "Thirty Days of Night" sequel, else-wise I never would have rented it, but the people who approved it, never mind those who "wrote" it, must've been towering idiots. How the *bleep* do you title a movie "Thirty Days of Night" and then set it in Los Angeles? There's not even 24 hours worth of night in L.A. for *bleep*'s sake, never mind thirty days.
I understand they were capitalizing on a title that already had some mojo, which I do not have an issue with in principle, but if you call the picture "Thirty Days of Night" you have to be capable of supplying THIRTY...DAYS...OF...NIGHT. If you're incapable of maintaining the premise you, yourself, have set in the title of the movie you need to either not write the movie or change the title, end of sentence! -
Michael-d-duncan6 October 2010BOTToM LINE up top: If you enjoyed the first film see this one; you'll not regret it.
Now with the review: I rented this film on the first day it dropped. I am a fan of the first one and so when I heard that a sequel was coming out my elation was almost a great as my disappointment that it was STV. Usually the a franchise suffers from a dilapidated entropy when they hit the STV crowd however, this film really did deliver. The switch of actresses for Stella gets a little getting used to, but the character shift is exactly what you would think it might be.
Yes there is an ensemble cast which comes with a whole set of clichés that are of course fulfilled. Yes there is a bit of predictability in that kind of dynamic however, the film really does deliver.
The Vamps are exactly what they should be: Monsters. The action is chaotic and intense. The production is good (not as good as the first, but what do you expect from a STV sequel).
I've seem many complain about the plot. I didn't find anything boring about this film at all. Really a great sequel.
ALL IN ALL: IF YOU ENJOYED THE FIRST FILM SEE THIS ONE, YOU'LL NOT REGRET IT. -
OK so I finally got around to watching "30 Days of Night: Dark Days" and at the start I felt I was gonna have a hard time watching this movie and being totally hooked in. I liked the plot line of having a Barrow survivor as the heroine. 'Stella' played by Kiele Sanchez was a strong character from the start so I felt it is gonna work. Then the story took this whole "we are the warriors" turn with a group of misfit hunters entering the scene and I thought "oh no" they are gonna take every cliché step through this blood gushing battlefield plot-line. Blood gushing is what kept me in on this aspect, the effects and the gore were as good as any bigger budget movie, this was its saving grace.
The script could have been tighter on this one, especially with the character of "Amber" played by Diora Baird. She started out all bad ass and big talk but her actions were anything but right up until the end, then she finally stepped up, but half ass and not enough to warrant writing her character as some Zena of L.A. Still in every scene that mattered the blood saves the scene. The story was kinda weak and played out for the middle part of this movie.
The last section of this movie was the salvation. It was here that we bring it back around to why Barrow? Here the blood and gore were plenty and necessary, to make this movie worth it. I am not gonna give details on the ending just in case some one out there has not yet seen it. I will say that this ending was what made me forget that the whole time I was watching this I kept thinking " I hope this movie doesn't suck". Had this movie ended any different I would say "yeah it did, but I can say it is worth seeing for Vampire fans who like their demons vicious and unforgiving. I am one of those people. However it is a weak film next to the original and barely makes it above the webisodes "30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust". If I rated things on scales (which I don't) out of 5 I would give it 3, being generous on that simple because of the blood and gore, and the full circle back to the beginning. That may kinda be a spoiler there not sure. Oh well.
So there you have my rambling thoughts on this movie. See it if you wanna see but don't feel bad if you never get around to it. Just a horror fan not in anyway some kinda real critic. -
yxoa23 August 2016Dark Days starts from taking viewers straight back to the ending of it's prequel. It's a refreshing beginning which immediately is followed by the future tense: Stella is now educating people of vampire existence. She's not taken seriously by anyone before she kills couple of vampires in a half-full lecture hall.
FBI agent - who apparently has a bad bloody flue - advised her to keep her head down and reminds that nobody is going to believe her point of view of prequel's massacre.
It's easy enough to throw 3 musketeers to accompany Stella. There is no explanation how their mentor, humanistic vampire Dane, has acknowledged Stella. Maybe via vampire date app? Amber, the team's alcoholic, isn't pleased with Stella's lack of knowledge vampire-wise and wants to drop her out of team. That's all that we got from her character.
Anyways, Stella and the team is hunting a big bunch of vampires in L.A. (of all the places). She gets personal reason after she get the idea that the vampires might be planning to attack Barrow again.
Most of the fun of the movie is the easiness of Stella's character. She is mainly logical, thriven by solely the fact that people should know that vampires even exist. Killing them isn't her main ambition, but she isn't afraid to use the change. Paul's character isn't lacking charisma, but he's lack of dreamy memories of her daughter shine with their non- existence.
Amber and Todd are mainly there for now good reason and Dane's doings for the group are pretty nowhere to be seen. Even the main villain, Lilith, is lacking serious hotness or even serious scariness.
Dark Days is somewhat tied to the prequels plot and gives you the not so obvious ending which is always a pleasant thing. It also lacks of the dynamics of the prequel what makes it hard to give it more than 5 out of 10 stars. -
JoeB13121 October 2010The original "30 Days of Night" was kind of a good vampire movie that made vampires scary again when movies like "Twilight" and "The Vampire's Assistant" and the awful Anne Rice books were turning them into imaginary gay boyfriends for wannabe Goth Girls.
This movie, ahhhh, not so good. Stella, who survived the first movie but is now being played by a less talented actress, has teamed up with a team of vampire hunters after her attempts to sell a book go nowhere. They raid the vampire's nest, where the Expendable Black Guy (TM) gets killed, and they find out the vampires are going back to Alaska for seconds. (Now, if we can only get some vampires to attack the Palin family, that would be progress.)
The balance of the movie takes place on the ship, and has an ending that makes not a lick of sense, really.