MovieChat Forums > 30 Days of Night (2007) Discussion > Lame Vamps

Lame Vamps

posted 12 years ago by englisher101
4 replies | jump to latest

I thought this movie had a nice, straightforward premise with an interesting atmosphere and reasonably interesting characters, but the vampires just struck me as so lame.

I'm mostly tired of films where the creators feel like they have to show a facial close-up of a monster every 10 minutes with them looking at the camera and going, "Rarrrrrghh!" as though this is supposed to make them look menacing. It's become such a cliche now (especially with CG monsters though here they did it with live actors) that I think it makes them look cheesy more than anything else. I can excuse a film that does this once or twice but here I think they did it like 30 times.

I don't mind if the vampires are supposed to be beast-like. That's an interesting design decision, but I hate this recent trend where the filmmakers seem to feel that it's necessary to do this exact same monster close-up shot with a goofy pose and a growl since we tend to see it in almost every film now whether it's The Incredible Hulk or this film.

[–] jenna2009 12 years ago

Umm 30 Days of Night has lame vampires....as opposed to Twilight which has cool, glittery ones?
And the "rarrghs' that you have mentioned is their way of communicating.
Imo, this was an amazing movie of how vamps are really supposed to be. Unfortunately, I think people are so used to the new CGI trend of vamps and werewolves that they've actually forgotten that neither is supposed to be some romantic, teeny-bopper 'monster'. The monsters today seem to need to be politically correct and rated PG13...which for the vampire genre is total *beep*

Giving V to Jason Stackhouse is like giving ho-ho's to a diabetic!

[–] englisher101 12 years ago

Umm 30 Days of Night has lame vampires....as opposed to Twilight which has cool, glittery ones?

Both lame IMO, though I can't stand to watch Twilight.

And the "rarrghs' that you have mentioned is their way of communicating.

I'm criticizing more the choice of how to compose the shot, not the fact that they make these sounds. I work in the film industry in SFX so this particular type of shot where a monster poses (typically with shoulders hunched back, palms facing out with fingers curled) while looking at the camera with the neck extended and going, "Rarrrgh!" is something I've seen in so many productions now that I'm starting to get pretty tired of it. In this film I thought they did it too much.

It's not the basic concept of the vampires in here that I'm complaining about so much as the way they chose to shoot it. I thought they just did that particular close-up shot a few too many times: we see the same basic type of shot in so many films nowadays involving monsters that it seems compulsory to do it, and I can forgive the cliche once or twice, but this film just seemed to do it far too often IMO.

The actual sound they make isn't bad and is quite interesting. It adds a sense of danger to the atmosphere when they're lurking about and we can hear them from a distance. However, by choosing to do so many close-ups, and particularly this specific type of shot I described, I think it cheapened the effect. Of course it's only my opinion. The fact that the film industry chooses to do this type of shot so often in every film involving monsters recently from Underworld to Conan the Barbarian to this must mean that some people dig it.

[–] awsmith 12 years ago

Maybe it would have been creepier if the vampires had remained silent but retained their ultraviolence.

[–] dvd7 11 years ago

I'm glad they didn't go that route. I understand the point the OP is making about the close up "raaarrrr" they do in a lot of movies. But I didn't really notice it or feel like it stood out in this one. I absolutely love the vampire design...the look, the sound, the implied eastern europeon background. It's easily my favorite portrayal of vampires. If they were real I would most definitely think they'd be like this in every way.