Fantastic Fest 2010 Review: ’30 DAYS OF NIGHT:DARK DAYS’

30 Days of Night was a film that I half enjoyed.  There was some great scenes (ie. the famous top-down scan through the city) and some great gore, however, some of it didn’t work.  The acting was pretty mediocre and I didn’t feel any sympathy for the characters.  It seemed like a great example of style over substance.  While I didn’t think that the film needed a sequel, the story has continued in comic form.  Instead of making a theatrical sequel, the film company decided to make a direct-to-video sequel.  Was it worth it?

After surving the massacre of Barrow, Stella (now played by Kiele Sanchez instead of Melissa George is touring the country to try and inform the general public that vampires do exist.  In doing this she attracts visibility from the vampire “nation” as well as a group of vampire hunters.  The group shows up at Stella’s hotel room to try and convince her to join them in the fight and destruction of the nocturnal undead and their queen, Lilith (Mia Kirshner), who ordered the attack on Barrow.

I’ll admit, I had hopes for the film.  Steve Niles, co-creator of the 30 Days of Night franchise, co-wrote the screenplay with director Ben Ketai.  Ben Ketai has familiarized himself with this franchise prior to this sequel with the FEARNet web series 30 Days of Night: Dust to Dust.  One would think that you would have a very good story with the co-creator of the comic and someone who seems comfortable in directing since he got his feet wet with the background and mythology that is 30 Days of Night. 

Unfortunately, everything falls flat and what is worse is the whole basic outline of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days is the same outline of Cameron’s Aliens. This would almost be acceptable if it was a film from the early 90’s, when a lot of action films with horror elements would cop off of Cameron’s influential film.  For a film from 2010, it is not acceptable.  It comes of tired and worthless.  Essentially, the film doesn’t add anything to mythology nor does it bring anything new to the table.  We have seen it all before.

More often than not, it seems like director Ketai tries to find more visual trickery to captivate his audience and keep them interest when it really just comes off as a amateur way to progress the story.

What is most frustrating is that this sequel contributes NOTHING to the franchise nor does it have the legs to really stand on its own.  Dark Days keeps referencing to the original film to try to harvest emotion in hopes that the viewers will be prompted a fake sense of enjoyment.

I have already erased most of this film from my memory since seeing it and I advise you to steer clear if you are a fan of the comics because you will just end up wanting to savagely tear someone’s neck out.