FAQ for
30 Days of Night (2007) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDbs Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for 30 Days of Night can be found here.

Yes, it's based on a graphic novel that carries the same name as the picture by Steve Niles.

Yes. Barrow is located in the North Slope Borough of Alaska at 71.30° N latitude and 156.78° W longitude. As such, it is 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Find a map of Alaska and look along the northern coastline. Barrow sits on a peninsula that juts into the Arctic Ocean. Nearby Point Barrow is the northernmost point in the United States, and the town of Barrow is the northernmost settlement on the whole North American mainland. Google Barrow, Alaska for a variety of photos.

Technically, there is a 67-day period during the winter where the sun never quite makes it over the horizon and an 85-day period in the summer where the sun never quite sets. However, it is NOTHING like what was shown in the movie. In the movie, the entire sun was shown above the horizon; then it set one day and light wasn't seen again for 30 days.

What actually happens is that, because of the earth's tilt, the Arctic sun circles close to the horizon rather than traveling overhead from east to west as it does in temperate and equatorial zones. In the Arctic winter, the sun continues to circle the horizon but, over a period of weeks, more and more of it dips below the horizon. On the last day before the two months of night, the sun just barely peeks over the horizon for a few minutes before it disappears. However, this does not mean that the sky is totally dark. The first several nights of no sunlight would have peripheral light around noon, as the sun almost made it to the horizon, but not quite. It would be like the period just before and just after sunset, when the sky is light despite the sun not being quite up yet or just after it went down.

Conversely, on the first day of sunlight at the end of the long night, the very tip of the sun pops over the horizon again and, several minutes later, it disappears. Gradually, the time above the horizon increases until the full sun can again be seen. For more information on daylight and darkness in Alaska, visit here.

There has been much discussion about possible languages on which the vampires' language may have been based. Because of what some describe as a "guttural" aspect to the vampires' speech, various languages in the Slavic, Germanic, and Scandinavian tongues have been suggested. Others have noticed clicks in the speech and have suggested Native American, tribal, or Australian aboriginal languages. Because the vampires' language in the comic series was described as an "ancient unknown" language, some have suggested ancient Egyptian, Celtic, or Mayan. Even fictional languages such as Klingon, Wookie, or the raptors in Jurassic Park have been offered as possibilities. However, in a first screening Q-A interview, director David Slade admits that it is a purely fictional language designed by himself, Danny Huston (who played the lead vampire), and a linguist. They did not base it on human speech at all but meant for it to be animalistic in nature, based on sounds made while feeding, eating, and expressing hatred.

The Stranger has a Cajun accent that is specific to certain parts of New Orleans in Louisiana. Per director David Slade, Ben Foster, who plays The Stranger, spent his own money to consult a dialect coach and learn to imitate a Cajun accent. Slade believed that, due to the film's extreme northern setting, someone with a southern accent would seem especially alien. Slade and Foster talk about the Stranger's role, including his accent, in this interview here.

The origin of the vampires is never explained in the movie. However, it might be assumed from the opening scenes that they arrived in the ominous-looking grey ship floating in the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean just off the coast near Barrow. The stranger gazes at the ship for a short while before beginning his trek into the town. As to where the vampires got the ship and where they came from before they chose to dine in Barrow, it is unknown. There are two possible clues. One is when Marlow wonders why they never before thought to come to the Arctic Circle where there is no sunlight for weeks at a time during the winter. This suggests that they came from someplace further south. A second clue is the Cajun accent of the stranger. Cajun is spoken in Louisiana, so the vampires may have picked him up previously while dining there.

Actually, it's the other way around. Vampires used to be creepy, foul, evil creatures from the grave who took the blood from the living, eventually causing them to fall ill and die, losing their immortal souls in the process. Dracula, as he was created by Bram Stoker, had hairy palms and a rancid breath that caused shudders when a person got near him. He brought home infants for his vampiresses to feed on. Bela Lugosi, tall, dark-haired, elegantly-caped, and aristocratically-accented, softened that image somewhat in the 1930s when he starred as Dracula on the stage and in the movie.

It was in the 1970s, however, that everything really changed. Several Dracula movies came out in which the actor, e.g., Louis Jourdan and Frank Langella, portrayed the character as the total hunk, romantic, debonair, seductive. At the same time, Anne Rice's characters, e.g., Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and Armand, also appeared and helped to change the vampire from creepy to cultured, from foul to fancy, from evil to elegant, from the grave to the goth. Instead of hunting the night for the hapless meal, vampires now took jobs as actors, detectives, and business moguls. Instead of dark castles, they lived in penthouses. Instead of feasting on human babies, they now got their blood from abattoirs (slaughterhouses), morgues, and willing donors. This vision of the vampire is the one that has predominated in the movies for the past 30 years.

With 30 Days of Night, we've seen a return to the pre-Ricean vampire, the creepy, evil killer that you don't want to meet on a cold, snowy night in Barrow, Alaska as opposed to the suave, rich prettyboy languishing on the French Riviera in his sunglasses and 1500 SPF suntan lotion.

Actually, that's how houses are built in Barrow. Click here to see an actual photo of the houses in Barrow, Alaska. Notice that all of them are sitting on raised platforms. This is because of the permafrost. Building on permafrost is difficult because the heat of the building can melt the permafrost and send the house sinking into the ground. Consequently, houses in Barrow are built on stilts to keep the ground cool underneath them.

In the commentary for the film, it is mentioned that they cut a scene showing Gail (the little girl at the end of the movie) and her family getting found and killed by the vampires. Gail managed to escape, which explains why she's covered in blood. The makers decided it was creepier if she just appeared from nowhere.

"Apocalypse Please (Instrumental Version)" by Muse.

Critical response has been mixed. Some critics praised the film for its visceral and bloody style that went against the recent PG-13 horror trend in favor of a hard R. Danny Huston has received generally good reviews for his performance as the vampiric villain Marlow. On the other hand, some felt the film had two weak leads in Melissa George and Josh Hartnett and that it was light on substance, depending totally on its arterial sprays and glossy style. The film recieved 53/100 on metacritic, indiacting mixed or average reviews.

Critics quoues

"30 Days of Night works on its own terms, which is more than can be said of most horror films these days" James Berardinelli, 2007

"a truly stunning ending that's well worth the wait." BBCi film, 2007

"typically boneheaded siege drama" Peter Sobczynski, 2007

"a ridiculously wicked premise lost on a filmmaker who doesnt have the vision, patience, or slightest thread of talent to breathe life into it." Efilm critic, 2007

"30 Days of Night" is the rare horror film that actually lives up to its potential." Eric. D. Snider, 2007

"Its not a classic, but its good blood-spattered fun." Rob Gonsalves, 2007

"Thankfully Not A Shyamalan Marathon, But Still Disappointing" Erik Childress, 2007

Yes, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days is currently in production with an expected release date in 2010.

Several people have noted that 30 Days of Night reminds them of John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) in which an alien that absorbs and mimics human bodies terrorizes a group of scientists in the frozen Antarctic. The creature even shrieks like the vampires in 30 Days of Night. The Thing was itself a remake of the 1951 movie, The Thing from Another World, in which an alien that needs human blood terrorizes a group of Air Force officials and scientists in the frozen Arctic. Another movie said to be somewhat like 30 Days of Night is Stephen King's Storm of the Century (1999), in which a stranger terrorizes residents of Little Tall Island, Maine during a freak snow storm. Also, there is Smilla's Sense of Snow, in which the investigation of the death of a young Inuit boy leads to an asteroid that has awakened something deadly in an iceberg along the Arctic coast of Greenland. The 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead is also reminiscent of this movie, particularly the similarities in which the vampires and zombies move and kill and the fate of of one of the main characters.