30 Days of Night: Dark Days

The 30 Days of Night saga continues with this direct-to-video sequel that picks up about a year after the events of the original and follows Kiele Sanchez’s Stella as she reluctantly joins forces with a trio of vampire hunters (Rhys Coiro’s Paul, Diora Baird’s Amber, and Harold Perrineau’s Todd), with the film primarily revolving around the foursome’s ongoing efforts at killing the much-feared vampire queen (Mia Kirshner’s Lilith). It’s clear right from the get-go that 30 Days of Night: Dark Days possesses a surprisingly cinematic sensibility that immediately sets it apart from its DTV horror brethren, with the promising atmosphere cemented by an irresistibly over-the-top sequence in which Stella “outs” several vampires within an auditorium by shining bright lights on the audience. The movie’s better-than-expected vibe proves to be short lived, however, as director Ben Ketai, working from a script cowritten with Steve Niles, has infused the proceedings with an almost unreasonably deliberate pace that’s exacerbated by a variety of factors – including the presence of uninvolving, underdeveloped characters and an ongoing emphasis on aggressively shaky visuals. It’s consequently not surprising to note that the viewer’s interest ebbs and flows throughout, with the less-than-enthralling climactic battle aboard a cargo ship ensuring that the whole thing ends on a decidedly underwhelming note. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days does possess one or two admittedly compelling moments and a number of impressively brutal kill sequences, yet the film is, in the final analysis, simply unable to live up to the better-than-average standard set by its superior predecessor.

** out of ****