30 Days Of Night (15) BLOOD-THIRSTY scenes and uncomfortable viewing are what you should expect, but this horror thriller is sadly more Buffy the Vampire Slayer than Dracula...

30 Days Of Night (15)

BLOOD-THIRSTY scenes and uncomfortable viewing are what you should expect, but this horror thriller is sadly more Buffy the Vampire Slayer than Dracula.

30 Days Of Night, adapted from a graphic novel of the same name, is full of cartoon-style gore with necks ripped apart by stereotypical vampires making it an ideal film to scare the Hallowe'en hell out of you, but little else.

It's set in Barrow, that's not our Barrow, although it is without question the closest England has to a village of the damned, but the most isolated town in Alaska, which goes 30 days a year without sunlight, and the film focuses on the inhabitants' fight for survival when a mysterious group of strangers appears on the first day of sundown intent on killing every last one of them.

Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) senses danger from the outset, but as per usual takes his time to accept fully what is happening and, despite several pathetic bleats about the non-existence of vampires, it takes an encounter with an axe and someone's head to prove to him something is seriously wrong.

Coincidentally, the dire circumstances and imminent threat of death force him back on speaking terms with his estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George), but with both of them lobbing limbs off infected town folk left, right and centre, you can't help but consider who really has become evil.

The final straw comes when they have to hold down a little girl of no more than five and cut off her head.

As for the vampires, they are a clever bunch who steal and burn all mobile phones and kill all the husky dogs in town before they attack - but they are undermined by the filmmakers' desire to give them their own language, which is subtitled to let us know how much they hate mankind and how everyone must be destroyed, which, needless to say, is stating the obvious.

The ending is disappointing as is the amount of scenes dedicated to survivors harping on that if none of them lives, no one will ever find out what happened.

The question is: will anyone care?