This is one of those movies where people say, "Wow, what a great idea. Why didn't they think of that sooner?" I don't know - maybe because it's not a great idea?
Perhaps it could've been a great idea...vampires invading Barrow, Alaska during 30 straight days of darkness at the height of Arctic winter, and feasting on the townsfolk. Unfortunately, it was made by a bunch of borderline incompetents.
Honestly, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie (it might have been Apocalypto). It was the vampires that got me - this bunch of allegedly menacing people with stretched-out faces and little black eyes hissing and dripping blood from their mouths, and talking in some language that sounds like Klingon. The first time they started talking, I swear, I almost fell out of my seat. Hilarious.
Almost equally hilarious is the notion of Josh Hartnett as a small town sheriff who's the only thing standing between the townspeople and destruction. Josh is just so not the kind of person I would want defending me if vampires descended upon my sleepy sub-polar community. Nothing against him...I'm sure he'd try his damnedest. It's just that, were some horrific fate in danger of befalling me, I'd prefer someone protecting me who seemed smarter than his own boots.
The whole thing is just such a mess. The clunky plotting (the vampires are so clumsily introduced that you just want to stand up and yell at the director to go back to film school), the tin-eared dialogue, the listless acting. Oh, and the dumb-ass heavy metal horror routines, which reach a truly revolting level in one scene where a young girl becomes a vampire and gets decapitated with an axe. The movie is so desperate to drum up shock value that you just feel sorry for it.
