Oct 30, 2019
NARRATOR: “Welcome back to Reign of Terror 2019! 31 straight days of horror movie reviews and interviews. Today’s episode will feature Dave Horrocks and Chris Phelps, of The VHS Strikes Back Podcast, who will be reviewing 2007’s ’30 Days of Night’. A promo will run before the review.”
NARRATOR: “But for now, let’s turn out attention back to the fate of our host, in Part Four of “THE FINAL STRETCH”.”
SCENE: Abandoned cityscape.
NARRATOR: “The narrator, the TRUE hero of this story, couldn’t let Joseph get any closer to the next checkpoint, so he began making all the adjustments he could with the controls that remained.”
NARRATOR: “He made it night.”
JOSEPH: “What the...?”
NARRATOR: “He made it as cold as possible.”
JOSEPH: “Where is all this snow coming from?”
NARRATOR: “And he summoned a bunch of new threats to stop Joseph dead in his tracks.”
DAVE: “I see him. Yes, he enacted vampire protocol as you expected, O.M.S.”
CHRIS: “Targets coming in from the west side. If we move as fast as we can, we can just make the checkpoint.”
DAVE: “All right. Let’s walk and talk, though.”
NARRATOR: “But they wouldn’t even start going, because just then, a vampire leaped out and...”
CHRIS: “UV blasters ready. Let’s go.”
NARRATOR: “...was charred to ash by... wait, Chris? Dave? I thought they were both already dead. How did they...?”
JOSEPH: “What’s the status outside?”
DAVE: “We’re part of Sigma Team, re-enlisting after our last encounter. Everyone’s supposed to just get one demo, but we found a stack of keys that hadn’t been used.”
CHRIS: “Yes, that’s why for legal purposes, my name says Shmiss.”
DAVE: “And I’m Shmave.”
JOSEPH: “Works for me.”
CHRIS: “Anyway, we’re here with the new extended controls, but since we spawned in with you, we can’t use the same controls. So, it’s just the three of us to get you to the checkpoint. Just about halfway there.”
NARRATOR: “But the narrator would make sure that wasn’t a possibility. He would just increase the difficulty level on the Alaskan vampires, so that...”
JOSEPH: “No, I want to try and reason with him. Shane!”
NARRATOR: “Cried Joseph, obviously looking to cut a deal that would save his cowardly skin.”
JOSEPH: “I can’t hear you right now, but I know you’re feeling pretty bad.”
NARRATOR: “Whined Joseph, who definitely wasn’t making insightful observations about my character’s development within this story.”
JOSEPH: “I know you probably just did all this to impress me. And you have.”
NARRATOR: “You’re damn right I have. I MEAN... noted Joseph rather astutely.”
JOSEPH: “But this isn’t the way, Shane. What you’ve built here, it’s... it’s amazing. A fully functional horror movie simulator, with all the bells and whistles one might want.”
NARRATOR: “Joseph appeared to be on the right path. Perhaps there was a chance at redemption. The narrator relaxed his finger over the button that would increase the difficulty, making escape impossible.”
JOSEPH: “We could do so much with this technology. So much opportunity for horror movie and audio drama fans. So convenient for literally inventing whatever story needs to happen, because you’ve made all that possible. You.”
NARRATOR: “Gosh, Joseph... I... I think we need to chat.”
NARRATOR: “And the narrator moved his character of the closest vampire, picking up the speed to outpace the others.”
SHANE: *as vampire* “Don’t shoot! It’s me, Shane! Ah, blah, blah, blah!”
JOSEPH: “Guys, turn around, it’s Shane. Watch for the rest. Keep one blaster trained on him. What do you want, Shane?”
SHANE: *as vampire* “I vant to suck your blood!”
CHRIS: “I got him...”
SHANE: “WAIT, DON’T SHOOT! That’s an automated response. We’re still working out the bugs in the vampire character.”
JOSEPH: “I’m still taking a few steps back.”
SHANE: “Look, I know I’ve gone a little overboard.”
JOSEPH: “A little?”
SHANE: “But I heard what you said, and you’re right, I do feel bad.”
DAVE: “Multiple vampires, inbound.”
CHRIS: “I’ll handle it.”
JOSEPH: “Quickly. Unless you want to call them back.”
SHANE: “I can’t. Not without going back to narrator.”
JOSEPH: “Awfully convenient.”
SHANE: “Hey, I didn’t write this.”
JOSEPH: “Good point.”
SHANE: “Can we just go back to the part where you were praising me?”
JOSEPH: “This is all magnificent, Shane. Beautiful rendering. Lifelike feel. I’ve seen plenty of movies do this, and novels, but an audio drama, I’m pretty sure that’s new.”
DAVE: “Not new, actually... there’s this one audio drama podcast that...”
JOSEPH: “COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY NEW! It’s really amazing.”
JOSEPH: “And really, I don’t care what the others are saying."
SHANE: “Wait, others?”
JOSEPH: “That this story sounds like an overdone rip-off of millions of other virtual reality worlds used as story settings, a little too similar to, say, ‘Ready Player One’ or ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ or ‘The Lawnmower Man’.”
SHANE: “I think it’s a bit better than ‘The Lawnmower Man’.”
JOSEPH: “But the difference is that you really did it. And the world can be better for it.”
SHANE: “You think so?”
JOSEPH: “Sure, Shane.”
JOSEPH: “But that’s not how this goes down. Waste him, guys.”
NARRATOR: “And after a quick swipe of the UV blaster, Shane was thrust back into the narrator role, immediately jamming up the difficulty, and watching as hundreds of vampires tripled their speed. And Joseph started running because...”
JOSEPH: “Hold up, guys. No need to run anymore.”
NARRATOR: “I said, and Joseph started running...”
DAVE: “Oh man.”
CHRIS: “Can you see this?”
NARRATOR: “No matter. And the vampires closed in. Thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters...”
NARRATOR: “What? What happened?”
JOSEPH: “These admin controls are pretty sweet. You can literally change night into day.”
NARRATOR: “NO!”
DAVE: “What now?”
CHRIS: “Continue forward?”
JOSEPH: “I can make it from here. He’s just up ahead in the next sandbox. I’m just going to lock in the environment to give us an advantage.”
DAVE: “What do you have in mind?”
JOSEPH: “Oh, it just popped right into my head.”
CHRIS: “Oh, you don’t mean?”
JOSEPH: “I do. Now, head back out, let the rest of the team use this access key I’m issuing to meet me in the final room. I have an idea that will definitely work.”
NARRATOR: “Change the environment? Let me just look out the window to... 1980s New York? What’s going on...?”
JOSEPH: “Find out tomorrow, in Part Five of “THE FINAL STRETCH”!”
NARRATOR: “Oh no! I’ve lost narration!”
JOSEPH: “Where we’ll be joined by a whole host of individuals, and I’ll be reviewing a film that I watch every Halloween. And I will this year as well, once I take care of this business.”
NARRATOR: “I need to set up some defenses, here.”
JOSEPH: “Oh Shane...”
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<< THE VHS STRIKES BACK PROMO >>
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Hello and welcome! I’m Chris Phelps, and I’m Dave Horrocks. And we are The VHS Strikes Back, the show where we dust off the video player and go on a nostalgic journey to look at the good and bad movies of yesteryear.
Today’s movie is “30 Days of Night” (2007), the horror film was directed by David Slade and written for the screen by Brian Nelson, Steve Niles, and Stuart Beattie. The movie stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George and is set in the northern Alaskan town of Barrow. There, the polar winter brings a sunset of 30 days and 30 nights. Which makes for a perfect hunting ground for vampires and the resident humans find themselves cut off and are in a battle to survive.
Spoilers ahead!
With sunlight being a deadly adversary of nosferatu, it seems strange that no one would have thought of the idea before to have a vampire vacation in a place where the sunlight doesn’t show itself for a month. But that’s the concept created by Steve Niles, and after failed pitches with comics and movie scripts, eventually had the 30 Days of Night comic published by IDW in 2002. After the success of the book, the movie rights were picked up by Sam Raimi and Senator International.
The movie follows Josh Hartnett’s character, Sheriff Eben Oleson, and builds the mystery and suspense well as he encounters a number of unusual crimes, like the burning of the towns cell phones and slaughter of the town’s huskie dogs. As the vacationers start to arrive, some of the townsfolk are brutally murdered and we’re left in no doubt that this is a much more primal variety of vampire from the cuddly, sparkly ones we saw in the Twilight series.
The first two-thirds of the movie are gripping and supplemented by plenty of blood and gore served up by this group of savage and cruel vampires, led by head vampire Marlow (Danny Hudson). But after the promising build up, the movie takes the band of believability and stretches it to beyond breaking point with how the town residents manage to survive, and then take down the head vampire. This sadly ruins all of the tension that came before and exposes the fact that most of the characters are underdeveloped and we’re left wondering if we really care about them at all.
This movie promised so much and does have a great premise and build up. If you’re a fan of vampire movies, then we’d recommend giving this a go and enjoying following the mystery and witnessing what an apex predator vampire would look like. But the ending is poor and really drags the film down.
Rotten Tomatoes: 51%
Metacritic: 53
One Movie Punch: 5.0/10
“30 Days of Night” (2007) is rated R and is available on Amazon Prime, DVD, and Blu-ray.