Speaking of villains, future shining-star Ben Foster and seasoned vet Danny Huston depict daunting characters who scratch their way past your eyes and deep into your memory. Foster is outstanding and nearly unrecognizable as The Stranger, while Huston easily becomes a petrifying vampire that is both humanistic and bestial. Both Foster and Huston are worthy of applause for their exquisite acting.
On the other hand, Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, the film's headliners, do a little more than sleepwalk through the film. George puts on the same face that she exhibits in The Amityville Horror (2005), while Hartnett is too young, handsome, and refined to play a rough town sheriff. Good thing the temperature can be an excuse for their cold interpretations of the comic book characters.
Acting aside, 30 Days of Night is an intense exercise in vampirism, but its ending comes quick, and somehow it's hard to believe, despite the picture's already fictitious plot. Even so, the film doesn't stab itself in the heart with a silver stake. Regardless of its far-fetched whimper of an ending that pushes a man's sacrifice for love and his inability to live with regret and a broken heart, 30 Days is a decent white-knuckling horror/thriller and the better choice for a Halloween feature from the '07 lineup. Although it isn't a full course, 30 Days of Night satisfies the thirst for a sizeable vampire horror.
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