Frostbitten: 30 días de noche

I just watched the film in a small town in the southern of Sweden called Laholm and I must start this review by saying that I'm mighty impressed by this movie.

On my way in I cached a few words with a woman standing in line and I also tough I recognized a man in her company, but I could place him and later when they got up on "stage", to present the movie, it all came clear to me who they were. I had seen the man on TV doing an interview and if I just had tough of that earlier…

But anyway, on to the review.

To begin somewhere, I will start with the Visuals. I think the camera placement in the scenes were OK and with good colors. Sometimes it could seem like it was getting a bit out of focus but I think it was intended to add a good feel to it. The special effects were nice and not to flashy.

Then we come to the audio part. Music was really nice and fitting. The audio were clear and the dialog felt real.

On to the story. It was an interesting story with a great beginning as well as ending.

The feel. The whole thing felt very real, not at all Swedish and not to "Hollywood". I have heard that the movie were somewhat comical and when I heard I taught something like "No, not another silly comedy", but now after I've seen the film I must say that it had some funny moments but they all felt real and not silly comedy as you see in a lot of movies these days (Maybe the talking dogs were a bit to silly, but it were kind of cool the first time). Vampire movies are often either action, splatter or vampires-are-good movies but this movie had a good blend of events that made it unreleasable in any of these categories. It didn't feel like a Horror movie, walking home alone at midnight in a small dark "village" after seeing the movie were no problem, although I cached a glimpse over my shoulder once in a wile just to make sure. Also the fact that the producers of the film were there and presented the whole thing is always a bonus.

The Rating I give this movie 7/10… no, because of some circumstances 8/10.

The Circumstances ^ I don't like to compare movies to other movies from the same country, but I must say that this were really nice, not just for being a Swedish movie. And then maybe some people think vampire movies should be all dark and fogy and sure these are great movies to, but they shouldn't be compared to this one. There were some few things that I didn't like but they really were few and I think you can overlook one or two things in a movie and still think it is great.

//SteffeB

When it's finally time for a Swedish horror whit a real budget it turns out to be, well not so good. Its a shame really cause this movie has been under production for many years so one had hoped they would give us , if not great, at least a good film. No luck there.

I have no idea what the director was thinking when he watched the final cut. The whole climax of the movie is horrible edited. We go from one scene to another and after a while you have lost track of what is happening, and you really don't care either. The acting is at times lousy, the one who gets away is Jonas Karlstöm who plays Sebastian. He makes the movie worth seeing.

The effects of the movie are great, nothing to complain about there. What bothers me the most is if this was the last Chance for Swedish horror.

This is one of the best Swedish movies ever! It is however not a horror movie, it felt more like a black comedy with some smaller horror elements. The main story is about a girl that moves with her mother to a small town in the north of Sweden, where it is dark 24/7 during the winter. She tries to make friends at her new school, and meets a goth-girl called Vega. Strange things start happening in the town, people are found dead completely drained of blood, without any trace of any killer. Anyway, this is a great movie, it has good effects and good music. The only thing I can really complain about is some of the actors, who reminds me very much of amateurs. Overall however this was a really enjoyable movie, I laughed a lot and so did the whole audience at the theater. I saw it at the Arctic Light Film Festival in Kiruna, February 2006. Great movie!

This movie starts with a flashback. A flashback were they talk German, but evidently you can hear (if you're familiar with the German language), that the actors are not Germans themselves. Just a trivia fact, for the beginning.

Because this doesn't hurt the movie, after the flashback you get to the present time and the movie kicks off. And that means it really get's going! It then starts out more as (teen-)comedy, just to evolve into a horror-comedy. The transition is pretty good and many jokes work, but unfortunately in the end (literally), the movie falls short. It just seems, that they run out of ideas or money ... or both, but this movie does not feel like it's finished. It's a shame then, because this could've been so much better, but it's still good!

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Bad focus from time to time. Lack of creativity.

EDITING: Pretty good considering the cinematography.

ACTING: Various

LIGHTING: Nice but i prefer fog and mist-lighting effects in horror movies.

MUSIC: Very well written and performed. Almost too good to work effectively together with some of the scenes. Gets too melodramatic at times, like the old silent films that scared the crap out the audience a long time ago.

DIRECTING: ?

VAMPIRES: Super nice! Realistic make up and CG.

SCARE: Bad timing in editing and bad choice of camera angles. If the movie tries to make the audience jump out of their seats with fear, we jump with laughter.

HUMOUR: Funny situations appear in the story. Maybe the next Swedish film project.

OPENING SCENE: Boring and not quite convincing.

SCRIPT: Correct thinking in structure but unfortunately, some of the characters feel superfluous. Vampire-Sebastian would be a lot more fun idea for a movie.

OTHER COMMENTS: They have overseen some of the best opportunities to capture beautiful and scary scenes involving white snow, fog and blood. Desipite the fact that the action is taking place in the middle of the cold winter, this wasn't used as a physical problem for the characters. I believe it was much colder for the slow working film crew than what was captured in the final result of the film. Where did all the money go?