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Night, Fright, Flite, Bite
by Mike Baron
Like all good fright fans, I dutifully trooped to my local metroplex to
catch 30 Days of Night, the new wave vampire movie based on IDW's
graphic novel. The film begins with the eerie image of a freighter
looming in the fog and ice off the coast of Barrow, Alaska, a town that
turns dark for a month each year. 30 Days is High Concept: "Wow, do
you
realize there are towns near the north pole that are dark for weeks at
a
time? What a feast for vampires!" What studio head doesn't
understand
that? Only Ivory/Merchant Productions would be immune to such a pitch,
particularly in light of Hollywood's headlong dive into comics.
The freighter is never seen again, implication being that the vampires
came in on it, crossing the Bering Strait from Russia. Next, someone
kills all the dogs, messily, operatically, leaving behind heaping piles
of red gobbets. "Boss - picture this - white snow stained with blood!
Think
of the visual!"
© 2007 Sony Pictures
Sheriff Josh Hartnett looks too young for the job, displays the
appropriate shock and horror when confronted with a severed head on a
pike. The sheriff's estranged wife Melissa George gets stuck in town
as
the sun sets. At first they dance around each other but by the end of
the story they have reconciled, alas, for all the good it will do them.
Once the vampires appear the story takes off and never slows down.
These
are modern vampires in suits and party dresses, although they speak an
unknown language with subtitles. I would have believed it more if they
spoke Russian. Some of the vampires have peculiar facial
characteristics, as if their eyes and nose were all pulling together to
form a pyramid of flesh. These vampires scuttle in fast-forward, like
the crazed zombies of 28 Days Later. They are super-strong. They run
citizens down and chow down on the spot. Soon their elegant suits and
dresses are spattered with blood. And they don't change clothes for a
whole month! One longs for fastidious vampires.
As the vamps turn Barrow into a ghost town, the sheriff, wife and a few
pals hide in a sealed attic, waiting for a white out so they can break
for the power utility on the edge of town. Our heroes figure out that
they are indeed under siege by vampires, and an experiment with a sun
lamp proves instructive. Faced with sun these vampires burn. Not a word
about crucifixes, garlic, or wooden stakes.
The good guys take to dispatching vampires in a variety of ways. But
the
vampires outplay the townspeople. It looks like the vampires are going
to win - that is, they're going to eat every damn body before the sun
comes up. The Sheriff decides there's only one way to fight these
brutes - join them. Injecting himself with tainted blood the sheriff
turns
instantly into a vampire, runs out and does battle with the chief
vampire.
It moves fast and it entertains, but it doesn't frighten. I'm
trying to
put my finger on it. Maybe it's this vampire-by-committee thing.
Maybe
horror works best when it's one on one.
Mike Baron worked for the Boston Phoenix, Boston After Dark, and the Real Paper. He broke into comics with Nexus, his groundbreaking science fiction title co-created with illustrator Steve Rude. Baron has written Marvel's Punisher, DC's Batman, Deadman, and Flash. Nexus has garnered honors too numerous to mention, including Eisners for both creators. Baron has written Star Wars for Dark Horse, Turok, Dinosaur Hunter and Archer & Armstrong for Valiant, and has three issues of Legends of the Dark Knight in the works.
A prolific creator, Baron is at least partly responsible for The Badger, Ginger Fox, Spyke, Feud, and many other comic book titles. He currently has two
new web comics up at
Big Head Press.
The Architect is a horror story based on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. The Hook is rock and roll science fiction - think Farenheit 451 only instead of banning books they have banned music.
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