Kiele Sanchez: Stella Oleson
Mia Kirshner:  Lilith
Diora Baird:  Amber
Harold Perrineau:  Todd
Rhys Coiro:  Paul
Ben Cotton:  Dane
Katharine Isabelle:  Stacey

Release Date: October 5, 2010
Studio: Stage 6 / Sony Pictures
Genre: Horror / Fantasy
Rated: R     1 hr 32 mins

CAST:

30 Days of Night: Dark Days

October 16, 2010

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

DIRECTOR:

Ben Ketai

*Comments:

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Here is a rarity in adaption cinema: A sequel to a film that actually uses the source material and is scripted by the author. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days is the direct-to-DVD sequel to the rather impressive 2007 film.  While there has been an actress shift with Kiele Sanchez (A Perfect Getaway) taking Melissa George’s place as Stella, the film picks up directly where the last film ended and uses the graphic novel Dark Days as it’s template.  And that is where things get a bit off as those unfamiliar with the graphic novels will think this sequel will again feature the snowy Alaskan setting.  Neither the film nor the graphic novel does as 30 Days of Night: Dark Days takes place in Los Angeles.

Stella’s hasn’t truly recovered from the traumatizing events that took place in Barrow.  She lost her husband and her town to a cult of frenetic, feral vampires the past winter and is now hell-bent on exposing the vampires among us.  So instead of going it alone and staking bloodsuckers, she is on the public speaking trail, informing skeptical audiences and even sometimes vaporizing the occasional audience vampire sent to spy on her.  Except this time when two vampires get toasted by her UV stage lights, the Los Angeles FBI office wants to have a few words with her.  Upon her release, she is visited by three vampire hunters (including Diora Baird not flaunting her assets!) who plead for her help to kill the vampire head honcho, Lilith (Mia Kirshner, The Crow: City of Angels).  Stella joins the fight and the group is off to stalk the vampires throughout Los Angeles, learning that the group is gearing up for a return trip to Alaska.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days is full of much more violence than horror.  It’s got full-auto gun fire, chopping machetes, C4 explosions, even hand to hand combat with less throat-tearing blood splatter than the previous film.  The budgetary constraints make for some lower-level CGI and not nearly as gnarly as make up as the original.  But by and large, director Ben Ketai does a fine job keeping the film flowing even though there are moments where the pace of the film gets uneven.  Lilith and the traitor vampire, Dane (Ben Cotton, Stargate Atlantis), are a little too underdeveloped and the vampire hunting squad is pretty much reduced to Stella’s back-up. 

The majority of the praise comes from the fact that 30 Days of Night: Dark Days stays true to the source material and by doing so, doesn’t give us a rehash of the first film.  Of all the cinematic adaptations of graphic novels, seldom do the original creators actually have input (creator Steve Niles co-wrote the script) and rarely do they actually follow the source material. It’s just that those taken with the original film’s exotic setting will be greatly disappointed as we get a murky Los Angeles instead of a bitter cold and sterile Barrow, Alaska.

Let’s hope there are enough DVD sales to next chapter in the series, 30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow, to be filmed. It will definitely make fans of the first film and the graphic novel series happy.