30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night is one of those movies like 300 that was widely loved upon its initial release, but gradually became “uncool” to like unironically as people began to pick it apart from a logical perspective.  No, Barrow does not really have 30 unbroken days of darkness.  No, it does not make sense for the vampires to wait for the last night to burn the town when they think everyone is already long dead.  No, the vampire rules don’t seem consistent.  No, you can’t set crude oil on fire that easily.

As with 300, however, I would argue that this film works largely because of it’s aesthetic.  This is a movie that’s driven by nightmare visuals; barren cold, utter darkness, and vicious inhuman predators.  The use of Josh Hartnett as Sheriff Eban Oleson was a touch of genius.  It’s true Hartnett was way too young at the time to pass believably as a sheriff, but his detached demeanor really gave the sense that this was a film that was about style over substance.

The premise of the movie is that the town of Barrow, Alaska closes down every year for a month during a period of complete darkness, with only a minimal population staying behind.  However, this year a mysterious man (Ben Foster) who may or may not be a partially-turned vampire (the movie can’t seem to make up its mind) comes into town and destroys any means of communication or transportation.  In the confusion Eban’s ex-wife Stella (Melissa George) finds herself trapped in the town with him.

All of this is a prelude to a vampire attack led by Marlow (Danny Huston).  The vampires speak a mysterious, subtitled language, emphasizing their status as the Other.  These are not humans, but monsters impersonating humans.  Newly turned vampires, on the other hand, stay exactly as humans as the plot requires, as they should, because this movie was not made with logic in mind.

The vampires wipe out most of the town pretty quickly, and just kind of…wait…while Eban and a few other survivors hide out. After a week or two, the vampires send out another surviving human to call out and see who responds.  Eban and his group don’t fall for it, and the woman is killed horrifically.

Why do the vampires wait so long?  Why not just search the relatively small town house-by-house if they have a full month?  Well, because they’re nightmare creatures, built around fear and tension.  To make discovery and confrontation certain would destroy the atmosphere.

The climax is pure contrivance, but who cares?  Stella is trapped outside in the burning town as the vampires try to cover their tracks, while Eban and the others are in the one building that might survive the inferno.  Eban calmly assesses the situation and says “They’ll kill her if she runs.  She’ll burn if she stays,” and decides to use a convenient dead vampire to turn himself so that he can fight the vampires, and save Stella.

Of course, Eban doesn’t immediately turn evil, Marlowe is more than happy to fight him one-on-one, and when Eban wins entirely through a lucky shot at Marlow’s head the other vampires quickly retreat.  Rather than hunting them, Eban chooses to stay behind and die in Stella’s arms as the sun rises, rather than risk becoming a monster.  It’s a convenient ending, but the movie needed closure.

It isn’t easy to talk about this movie in text, as much of the aesthetic is purely visual.  Many of the key scenes look downright iconic, like a painting.  It makes sense for a comic adaptation, although the style of the original comic book was extremely abstract.

Overall, however, I highly recommend the movie.  It’s fun, silly, and scary.  It’s definitely a movie I’d love to see on the big screen again, as I’m not sure how much of the impact I’m losing rewatching it on my television.  I’m pretty sure it’s a lot, though.

The Ring Two

Much of The Ring Two could have worked better if the makers hadn’t decided to tie themselves so the characters of the original.  Fundamentally, Rachel Keller and her son Aidan (Naomi Watts and David Dorfman) do not have a reason to be in this movie.  There’s definitely room to expand Samara’s (Kelly Stables this time, with Daveigh Chase in archive footage) backstory.  Obviously, if the villain of your movie is an evil child, and you establish that she’s adopted, there are questions to be answered about just where she came from.

The idea of “Rings” of risk-takers is also a good one.  Ryan Merriman returns for the first scene to die and end that storyline.  However, they’re horribly underused.  As far as I can tell their contribution to the plot is simply the creation of a large number of copies of Samara’s tape.  This, somehow, makes her more powerful.  They literally had a convenient source of unlimited new characters lined up, all aware of Samara, some under threat by her and others already free, and they threw it away.

Samara becoming more powerful might work, if she simply used her established abilities on a larger scale.  However, “more power” simply seems to mean “forget any established rules,” and Samara begins to get more powers as the plot requires.  Rachel and Aidan come under fire from everything from levitating water to angry deer, as Samara attempts to possess Aidan, because that’s a thing she can do now, despite the fact that he cast off her influence at the end of the last film.

The implication seems to be that Samara wants a mother, but why she became obsessed with Rachel out of all the mothers of her long line of victims I don’t know.  Why she couldn’t have done this before gaining an arbitrarily increased amount of power, I also don’t know.  It’s just stuff happens, so be afraid, audience.

I opened the movie expecting to complain about the performances.  The first few scenes are delivered in the kind of dull, deadpan, depressed monotone that I periodically complain about in horror films.  However, this is gone within a few scenes, and most of the acting wasn’t good or bad enough to be noticed.

The special effects are at about that same level.  They’re competent enough for their time to avoid complaints, but not really good enough to merit much else.  I can’t recall going “wow, that’s a good effect!” at any point.

So, we have a series of events.  A series of events I kinda-sorta regret watching, but not enough to spend any more time worrying about.  It’s “a movie,” and that’s all I can say.

Rings (Short Film)

I discovered this short existed when I watched The Ring 2 in preparation for the movie Rings.  It’s a shame that this short is probably going to become even more obscure now that it shares its name with the third feature in the series.  Honestly, I feel that this is the only good sequel so far, because it’s the only one that completely casts off the original movie and goes in a totally new direction.

We know Samara’s origin, and the story of our main characters has played out.  So, for this short, the creators decided to follow what logically came next.  Once the tape is out in the world, teenagers are going to want to watch it.  Being too clever by half, these teenagers are to form “Rings” so they can consistently pass the curse from one person to the next, and cheat Samara every time.

The brilliant thing about this is that it builds real tension around normal teenaged behavior.  Young people think friendships and commitments will last a lifetime, so when Jake (Ryan Merriman) finds that his group is more interested in observing what the seventh day of Samara’s attack looks like than in saving him, and no former members are willing to take another chance, the tension begins to grow.  It’s not totally clear if his “tail” (Josh Wise) actually got cold feet, or was told to back out by the group, but the effect is the same either way.

As with other Ring films, the dependency on technology creates some issues with age.  Most notably, I can’t imagine a “Ring” being confined to a group of teenagers who know each other from school in the age of Facebook.  It would presumably include people from around the country, if not the world.  However, as with the first film, it works perfectly within the time period of the setting.

The short has some pretty freaky imagery, as Jake descends into Samara’s world.  It isn’t as good as the first film, but it doesn’t need to be.  It’s using the premise to tell the story of a young man becoming more and more desperate.

I somewhat wonder if this short might have been an inspiration for It Follows, because it ends exactly where that movie begins: A girl agrees to go out with a boy, while the boy plans to pass a curse on to her.  Granted, The Ring 2 resolved this story-line, but that movie is terrible, so who cares?

Bottom line: If you want to watch The Ring series, watch the original and this short.