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As the wife of a geek, I'm subjected to a steady stream of straight-to-DVD movies. After several years and hundreds of coveted dinner hours, my initial non-geek skepticism about niche movies has been tempered. To be fair, many of them are small, independent films that do well by me, earning non-geek respect points for effort and originality.
But some of them are indeed so monstrously horrible that I have to put my foot down. In this case, my tarsal bones (and my remote thumb) came crashing down on 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.
This film (if we must call it that) is a low-budget sequel to 30 Days of Night, which enjoyed mildly successful box office returns in 2007. The original film was based on a comic book miniseries of the same name, penned by Steve Niles and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. Niles adapted the special-effects heavy original about blood-sucking vampires taking over a small town in Alaska, and director David Slade made it a really good film.
30 Days of Night eschewed an exploitation of the wildly popular vampire meme, portraying them as soulless monsters rather than emotional objects of sexual desire. The film also did not rely on gratuitous sex, violence and gore to earn its keep. It was a simple premise, simply executed, and the acting was terrific. Me = sold!
But then a fanboy (Ben Ketai) got the backing to make the sequel, Dark Days, based on the next plotline in the comic series. Ketai's previous credits include several short films and two television series adaptations of the 30 Days of Night franchise that have fallen way below the radar. Niles again adapted the screenplay, but this time, something went horribly, horribly wrong with the execution.
First mistake: hiring a crappy actress whose only virtue is looking good in underwear to replace Melissa George as the tough and brave main character, Stella Oleson (or Olemaun in the comic). There are some crappy actresses who look good in bikinis I'm willing to abide. Ohhh, but not Kiele Sanchez. She's the terrible actress you bring in when you want your audience to start hating you. As an example, she played Nikki, on LOST. Fans hated her so much, the writers had to kill her off by burying her alive.
Second mistake: inserting a sex scene just because. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually tolerant of sex scenes, particularly if they further the plot of a film in a meaningful way. In this case, the placement of the sex scene made me feel like the filmmakers were like, "hey, let's insert a random sex scene here because the plot kind of sucks during this part."
Third mistake: humanizing the vampires. It ruins everything! The allure of the first movie was that the main characters were battling soulless monsters that could not see reason, not rational evil masterminds. There was a mystical and unpredictable quality about them in the first film that made them worthy opponents. In Dark Days, they're pure caricatures, seemingly designed to cash in on that sexy vampire meme.
I'm going to give full disclosure here: I turned this film off about three-quarters of the way through, and still refuse to watch the end. I've also never read the comic, so I can't speak to how well Dark Days was adapted. But according to my husband, who has both read the comic and seen the end of this pathetic film, my half-hour would be better spent plucking my arm hairs out one by one.
If you are an aspiring geek by association, a geek in need of love or dating advice, or just interested in schooling me on proper usage of geek jargon, feel free to email me geekgirl@itsgeektime.com and I will get back to you right here on www.itsgeektime.com!
