Fridae

Our favorite film of the week is 30 Days of Night. Yes, it tanked at the American box-office. Yes, most critics hated it. Yes, the movie's ending sucks. But at least the first half of the film is very, very frightening. And it boasts some of the scariest-looking vampires we have ever seen. If you're a fan of the vampire genre, or just horror movies in general, this is the must-see of the week.

Josh Hartnett (who still looks boyishly sweet) plays a cop in a small, isolated town in Alaska where the sun doesn't appear for 30 consecutive days every year. The town usually copes by keeping on the street lights all day, all night. But this year is different. This year, the town has some uninvited guests who plan to feast on human blood non-stop before the sun comes up again.

Directed by David Slade, this film is slickly-directed and stylishly-shot. Well, at least the first half of it is. The vampires, who never show themselves at first, have a neat trick of dragging innocent victims into the dark before you can say, "Boo!" For the first hour, 30 Days of Night offers the most heart-stopping scares you can imagine. And then right about mid-way, the film stops being a first-class Halloween treat and degenerates into another illogical B-grade horror flick.

But there are some authentic scares to be had here and there, so we strongly recommend it.