With all the gore and dark abandon this movie promised in its preview, I was ready for the chill-maker of the year. Although the film did provide some unsettling moments, this movie was far from dark. The introductory scenes give you an unsavory mix of poor dialog and spoon feeding you the plot. There is no smooth introduction or easy transition from happy town to place of terror. The writer throws the personal struggles of the leading characters in your face in a 5 minute relationship crash course and then chugs along into a town that can’t turn back. Though the ideas behind how the enemies ‘prep’ the town for attack are viable, they movie fails to explain how a few of them were actually pulled off with no one noticing the events. Ofcourse, with any horror movie in our current day, its difficult to give a believable plot full of monsters that anyone now would even come close to believing is possible, but a few moments of ‘common sense’ explanation of minor events leading up to an entire town being held powerless overnight would have helped the credibility of the story line.


The enemies themselves were decent and thankfully not your cliche trench coat wearing fiends from 80’s hair band days - but they still lacked that mysterious quality that viewers have come to enjoy from vampiric characters. That being said, I have to actually contradict myself and say that bringing the characters in as beings who gave no regard to ritual or weakness was a grand and refreshing touch. What all powerful being would ever find romance with a mortal? What blood drinking monster would ever tolerate weakness, even in its own kind? None. And this film delivered a fantastic view on what attitude a man-eater would have.


The lead characters themselves were 50/50 to my preference. Josh Hartnett, as Eban, gave a fantastic performance in what I believe is a recalling of his gut stirring role in “Black Hawk Down”. In this film he further proved his uncanny ability to strike emotion in his viewers with just the switch of facial expression. I found myself agonizing along with him during his ’state of terror’ decision making. However, Melissa George, as Stella, left me cold. In an attempt to turn antagonist into heroine, she came off instead as a heartless ’seize the day and get the glory’ tough girl with only a small glimpse of compassion to spare in the final moments once the danger had passed. She gave me the feeling of ‘why is this brave man risking his life for this cold hearted wench’.


On a side note, a large portion of the viewing audience in the theater seemed to find several parts of the movie humorous. Some I agree with, as a few scenes and nuances of the vampire behavior were over the top or seen so frequently that they became a great object for a drinking game instead of a normal pattern. Many things lost their shock value after we’d seen them happen over and over.


All in all the movie was worth the ticket price, but you won’t find yourself shouting for more at the end. You’ll be satisfied, but completely ready to head out of the theater and stretch your legs.


Grade: B+