30 Days of Night has a brilliant premise. It takes place in an Alaskan town north of the Arctic Circle where, during winter, it goes 30 days without the sun ever rising. So a perfect place for vampires to move in and not have to worry about daylight for a while.

While I love the idea of the movie, I don’t think they executed it very well. The movie is a little less than 2 hours long and the way they edited it, this could have easily taken place in a single night. That is, I don’t feel like a month is passing for these characters when watching the movie. I don’t know if they needed more montages or scenes where nothing happened, but things move along at a quick enough pace that it doesn’t feel like these characters are spending 30 straight days in fear of their lives.

The vampires themselves are fantastic, both in the way they look and the way they act. So I don’t think the movie really does anything wrong. It’s just that I think this would’ve worked better as a TV series. Or who knows, I should probably just give in and read the original graphic novel. I’m guessing the graphic novel does a better job of portraying the progression of time.

Here’s a trailer. I believe it’s currently streaming on Peacock.

They made a sequel, called 30 Days of Night: Dark Days in 2010. I’ve never seen it but every review I’ve seen says it’s terrible. Since I wasn’t entirely enthralled by the original, I’m not too interested in seeing a worse version of the movie. Definitely let me know if it’s worth watching though.