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The original '30 Days of Night' was an original movie with an excellent cast, director, script, and special effects. It wasn't 'Jaws,' but it was very well done. All in all, a really good horror/vampire movie. Then the powers that be in Hollywood decided to make a sequel. There are the few obvious exceptions, but sequels generally are terrible. This movie is no different. The characters are cardboard cutouts of 'Generic Horror Movie Characer 1,' 2, 3, etc. The monsters are equally generic and uninteresting. Everybody lives in 'stupid world' and would have a hard time crossing the street in real life. There was not even a surprising or twist ending. I have seen better drama, acting and terror in a high school play. The only reason I did not give this one star, is that I have seen the truly great bad movies. If you are looking for something 'so bad it's good,' you will still be sadly disappointed. It is not even funny to mock. If you want to see a good vampire flick, catch the original or 'Near Dark' or 'Blood and Donuts.' Heck, watch anything which shows either talent or enthusiasm, but do not watch this. It is just sad.

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After the destruction and rebuilding of Barrow, Alaska, Stella Oleson (Kiele Sanchez) misses her beloved husband Eben and spends her time giving lectures uncovering the truth about the incident in Barrow and the existence of vampires to the world, following the lead of the unknown Dane. In Los Angeles, Stella uses ultraviolet lights in the auditorium to expose the vampires to the audience but the FBI Agent Norris (Troy Ruptash) tells that the incident was a hoax. When Stella returns to the motel where she is lodged, she meets Paul (Rhys Coiro), Todd (Harold Perrineau) and Amber (Diora Baird) that are vampire hunters and leans that Agent Norris is a wannabe vampire and the vampire leader Lilith (Mia Kirshner) is in the city and ready to return to Alaska. Further, she finds that Dane (Ben Cotton) is a vampire that has kept humanity after his transformation and wants to destroy Lilith. Stella joins the quartet that is armed and ready to battle against the evil vampires.
'30 Days of Night: Dark Days' is an implausible sequel of 2007 '30 Days of Night'. The incoherent screenplay has many flaws and poorly explains why the group fights with the vampires in suicidal attacks, either on the pitch black of the underground of Los Angeles or in a ship during the night. In the first film, the strength and the speed of the vampires were absurd and now the human can be protected behind a steel door. Kiele Sanchez performs Stella Oleson that was originally performed by Melissa George, and the scene of her final fight with Lilith is a rip-off of 'The Descent'. The conclusion is ridiculous and with the only intention of giving another sequel. My vote is five.
Title (Brazil): '30 Dias de Noite 2' ('30 Days of Night 2')

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I can see the next movie in the trilogy, 100,000 screaming and furious people chasing down the director and producer of this turd to get their money back.
More seriously, as a fan of the first film, I was as disappointed as I've ever been by any movie after watching this. During the first film, I actually felt emotion while watching. I felt the sudden jolts of shock and fear of course, but I felt more than that. I felt the hopelessness and despair of the characters trapped in their terrible and inescapable nightmare. I actually FELT their desperation. It was fantastic. As far as I'm concerned the original 30 Days of Night is the only vampire HORROR film ever made.
This Dark Days is a Frankenstein creation of hacked up and reassembled modern day vampire movies (that weren't very good in the first place) This could as easily be Blade 5 or Underworld 4 or Vampires 3 , I was half waiting for everyone to start kung-fu fighting.
This was as much a horror as a pie in the face is comedy. I'm sorry. I wanted to like this, and there were so many possibilities to take this after the original, obviously whoever owned it just wanted to try and make some money by releasing something with the 30 Days of Night name attached to it. There is zero writing. The ending sucked. Not because it was predictable, it just sucked like the entire film. And yes another female character undergoes the Ripley / Sarah Connor transformation.
Does anyone ever have an original thought? To all writers, I'm over it. Pick a new theme for every single sequel. Get a new formula, whatever. It's done - like a Thanksgiving turkey. OK? In short the original blew me away, and this just blew. Hope this saves you some money. Jackie

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this sequel follows an original that featured a decent budget and some very good actors.
and this, the first sequel, follows the pattern of most. that is as you move farther from the original, the budget shrinks.
and the consequences are: less sets, less location shoots, less action, no helicopter or overhead shots, cheaper actors, cheaper scripts and cheaper directors.
now some directors can take less money and turn out comparable or even better efforts than the original--but these are few and far between.
and this movie definitely suffers from sequelitis.
the whole thing feels stretched.

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Unlike the original, which relied on a tense, cunning, isolated, claustrophobic atmosphere which threw me back to that feeling of hopelessness conveyed in John Carpenter's The Thing, this shoot 'em up sequel focuses more on strobe lighting, gun play, and pop out scares to convey it's tone. The acting is on par with a STV sequel, but I won't even begin to touch upon the scripts many weaknesses. The many shaky cam shots running down dark corridors could have been lifted out of The Blair Witch Project. The trigger happy heroine in this sequel could have been lifted straight from the Resident Evil franchise. All-in-all not a bad vampire movie on it's own, but not a great one either. Worth a rent in the genre for you could do much worse, but if you are a fan of the original and expecting more of the same .. well, drop all expectations and wipe your brain blank once you press play.

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The original film surprised me as it was much better than I thought it would be - cheesy in places but the Vampires themselves were quite disturbing and by far the best I had seen for a few years in any Vampire film. Unfortunately, in this follow up they lose all of the menace they had first time around, they don't even speak in their 'native' tongue and it becomes an all too familiar standard modern day Vamp flick. The characters don't endear themselves at all, the acting isn't great and the special effects are OK at best. It's a shame as they had the chance to make another film that was a little different from the standard rubbish around today..True Blood, Twilight etc but they failed pretty miserably. It's watchable I suppose but you'll feel slightly let down at the end of it all.

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I've seen both films. While I liked the first iteration for bringing up the interesting idea that Vampires might exploit a lonesome town in Alaska where the sun won't shine for 30 days, this sequel really tries its best to underachieve at every conceivable level. First: The sound engineer needs to be slapped in the face. Hard. And I don't mean that in a comedic way. Each spoken word in 'normal conversations' is so quiet that you naturally turn up the volume - only to have your ear canals blasted inside-out the very moment the next action-bit kicks in.
Then this script had to be so smelly-bad that the actress of the first part didn't want to play any part in this mess (they even re-cycled footage as another reviewer has already pointed out).
And then there are plot holes the size of Alaska.. Q: At which time of the DAY (pardon the pun) do you hunt vampires? In the first part it was established that UV light is highly effective against 30DON's breed of (zombie-alien-)vampires: You saw how the hero disabled a female vampire just with some milliseconds of exposure to a greenhouse light.
In the intro of the 2nd part the heroine kills 3 vampires in her auditorium by using artificial sun-light..
Q: How do you dodge light, again?
Yet, those supposedly 'pro' vampire hunters pack assault rifles, submachine-guns and pistols which they have to admit 'won't take vampires out'.. If this doesn't spell stupidity, what does? If all you need is a battery and a bunch of UV lights fixed to your clothes in order to get 360° coverage (or a 'light-armor', if you will). Heck, you don't even have to learn how to shoot weapons. Just connect the cables, make sure the batteries are charged, press the ON-button and enter the vampire's lair.. but no, I guess that would be too logical and easy.. killing vampires isn't fun if they don't get a chance to bite you up-close..
Which leads me to the next question: We have seen that simply swallowing vampire blood turns you into one of them.. (nice mix-up with zombies BTW) Q: Why doesn't the heroine turn into a vampire if she gets her complete upper body and face covered in v-blood?
Then there is a climactic final battle on a ship full of vampires. (I would be surprised if the makers would know how this motif is a nod to Nosferatu). Well, at which time do the vampire hunters enter the ship? That's right! Total fücking darkness. Once again we get a chance to be amazed by their stupidity..
Q: Can you spell RPG (as in: Rocket propelled grenade)?
A single shot at an unmissable target, delivered safely at noon would have sent the whole v-mess of a ship to the ground of the ocean.. but no, we have go in at midnight in order to do some more slashing..
Although the vampires depicted here seem to be animistic simpletons that rarely remember how to use tools I really wonder how they came up with a plan as ingenious as the plot behind the 1st movie. In the sequel they seem to try their best at keeping their existence a secret.. which leads to my next burning question..
Q: If you are the head vampire, why would you be interested in uncontrolled population growth?
If everybody on this planet has been turned from human to vampire, how does a population of 7 billion vampires survive? The more vampires there are, the more mouths you have to feed, the harder it becomes to keep your secret - so why would you increase your v-population and therefore the danger of exposure?
Well, if you are able to cut the juice to your brain while radiating it with this kind of ill-conceived crap, heads off to you..

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The first movie was sooo good that I figured the sequel had to at least be decent - boy was I wrong. The production values are OK but the only thing this had in common with the first movie was the lead character. The vampires were almost like different creatures compared to those in the first movie and the story itself was so boring that I couldn't take it anymore and stopped watching three quarters of the way through. Like I said the production values and acting was OK, and usually I only reserve one star for those really cheap movies that look like they were shot in someones basement; so normally a movie like this would rate at least two stars from me. But any movie that's so boring that I can't sit through it only gets a star.

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So I wasn't what you would call, a huge fan for the first 30 Days of Night movie. I hadn't read the graphic novel, but I heard the movie was a fairly accurate adaptation of it. I did enjoy it, but I felt the pacing was slow, the characters weren't very well acted or flushed out, and really for a movie..devoid of any extensive plot. It was a slow, but occasionally fun watch.
Dark Days, the straight to DVD sequel of 30DON, delivers a lot of the same, only with a smaller budget. The basic plot is as follows: Stella Oleson, one of the few survivors of the first movie (albeit played by a different actress), is out for revenge on all vampires for the death of her beloved husband Eben. She makes her way to a major city, where she holds what are essentially vampire awareness seminars as a way to draw out the occasional one or two inquisitive vampires. This catches the attention of a small pod of vampire hunters, who contact her for their crusade against the uber vampire..Lilith.
The plot really isn't too shabby, but feels very under worked in this film. The lead females' (except for Lilith who has maybe a total of 5-7 minutes screen time) have a pretty believable performance, the lead males are..eh..well they're there at least.
The special effects for a straight to DVD are actually really well done in this film, it's somewhere in between expensive made for TV movies and terrible Hollywood films that should never have made it to the big screen. Cgi isn't hokey, make-up design for the most part is pretty well done. Although the teeth prosthetic look well..well they're kind of like those fake vampire teeth you pick up in the 99c bin during Holloween. Some of the gruesome death scenes and graphic gore is done quite nicely though.
The reason I didn't really care for this movie is the pacing is just terrible. The plot doesn't have enough material to fill up an entire movie, so we get these long dull sequences that just feel like filler. The action isn't too bad, but all of it is filmed in darkness illuminated by flickering lights. The scenery is almost entirely a warehouse district, and tunnel scenes..which can easily BE shot in a warehouse, so your eyes will get bored with the sets. This combined with the sub-par acting by many individuals in this film..just made this film so very..meh.
Basically it was interesting enough that I was able to sit and finish watching it, but it's a completely forgettable film for anyone who's not a die-hard 30 DON fan. It's a fairly bland vampire action flick, personally if I were to watch it with company I'm fairly certain everyone would be too bored to finish it.

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Please keep in mind that I gave the original 30 Days of Night 7 out of 10. I really enjoyed it, but wouldn't exactly call it ground-breaking. I loved the atmosphere of it. I also appreciated the fact that they didn't rely too heavily on CGI, like the cartoon vamps that were over- used in I Am Legend (released at roughly the same time).
IMDb have already supplied a synopsis, so I'm just giving my review. Sadly Melissa George is not involved. If she was, Dark Days might have received a theatrical release and I might have given it an extra star. Nevertheless, this flick certainly has its moments. You just have to accept Kiele Sanchez in Melissa's role. She does an adequate job. Obviously Josh Hartnett isn't in it, but his character is still very much present in essence and there are still some other familiar actors amongst the cast. I'm a big fan of Mia Kirshner who plays a demonic, Bathory-like queen of the damned and Harold Perrineau (Matrix 2 & 3, 28 Weeks Later, TV's LOST & OZ) who has a rather interesting part to play. I don't want to spoil it. The blood and gore factor is pretty much equal to it's predecessor. There are some very creative methods of liquidizing a vampires skull to ensure that it's really dead. Once again they don't over-rely on CGI.
You'll be pleased to know that the creators of the original comic book series are involved with this straight-to-DVD sequel. I'm not familiar with the comics, but I know enough to guarantee you a 30 Days of Night Trilogy. This isn't just a sequel for the sake of it. Further installments were always inevitable. See also 'Blood Trails' and 'Dust to Dust'.
Essentially, this a worthy follow-up. It's got enough cool bits to keep your attention for 90 mins. All you have to do is accept that Melissa was either too busy filming 'The Triangle' or simply felt that the project was beneath her. Then again, it's probably best to save it for Tight-Arse Tuesday or to round out your package deal. I'm predicting that Dark Days will be more popular than the impending Lost Boys 3. I know that's not saying much.
Check out my IMDb List for some better suggestions. 'HORROR/THRILLER: Obscure, Overlooked & Underrated' http://www.imdb.com/list/8QFZ78e4Ar8/

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Kiele Sanchez assumes Melissa George's role in this sequel where we find Stella Oleson moving on from Alaska to Los Angeles as the vampires return to rip apart more humans at night in the dark. Stella tries to warn people, and, of course, is considered crazy, until one particular meeting when sunlights she has rigged reveal vampires among a crowded auditorium of citizens, burning alive right before their very eyes, resulting in a frightened stampede. Stella, however, gains allies who have lost loved ones to the vampires and the four of them decide to go a hunting. There is a 'queen' of the vampires named Lilith(Mia Kirshner, born to play a head vampiress) who has built a nest in tunnels underneath LA. A vampire named Dane(Ben Cotton), who has somehow retained his humanity, will help them find and hopefully destroy Lilith so that her network of bloodsuckers will fall apart ending their threat to the human race. Stella is obviously reluctant to follow the orchestrated plan of a vampire, and she has little faith in such a small group walking into the lair of Lilith to destroy her. But, with no home to go back to, without anyone believing her story about the deaths of those in Barrow, Alaska, Stella will join forces with these three and the four of them will head into the tunnels after Lilith, prepared with enough weaponry for a war. When this backfires and one among their group is killed, the remaining three will have to reorganize, finding out through the information of a vampire they torture that Lilith plans another night siege on Barrow. The eventual plan becomes simple, find the ship which will carry a whole gaggle of vampires, and destroy it before Lilith can leave.
Harold Perrineau(OZ)has a small part as one of the trio who wishes for Stella to join his group. Rhys Coiro(as Paul)and Diora Baird(as Amber)are the other two who have lost and now hunt the undead savages. Katharine Isabelle(GINGER SNAPS)has a very small part as a tragic victim of Agent Norris(Troy Ruptash), a dying human desperately wanting Lilith to turn him. Somewhat effective direct-to-DVD sequel has its moments, although the climax(a decision Stella makes in regards to dead husband Eben)is preposterous, not to mention the vampires are a bit different than those in the previous film. Kirshner, with those black eyes and mouth full of sharp teeth, is quite stunning as the vamp leader, although her final showdown with Stella is a bit disappointing. The ultra-violence does the trick, you get neck ripping, bloodletting, bodies torn asunder by machine guns, vampires disintegrating by sunlight in gruesome fashion, beheadings, and a face is bashed in with a cinder block. Pretty steamy sex scene between Sanchez and Coiro, although its executed without nudity. My main beef is that the whole point of '30 Days of Night' is the Alaskan setting and the idea of having no escape through sunlight to help you. I would've seriously dug this film a lot more if the filmmakers had decided to follow the heroes into the tunnels a little longer.alas, this is not the case. And, for some reason, the vampires just aren't as scary or ferocious as in the original movie.

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Even though I've checked the spoilers box, I won't reveal anything about the ending of the movie. This movie is so bad that I registered with IMDb just so I could say so. It abandons everything about the first movie that made that movie great. The vampires are the standard Hollywood type and are not remotely intimidating. There isn't a character in the whole film that I cared about or was concerned would die, and when someone did die I didn't care. The setting of the movie is LA, not Alaska (so, there is no '30 days of night in the film'). There is a completely out-of-nowhere PG-level sex scene (and no, fanboys, it doesn't involve Diora Baird. You will not see her naked in this movie, so that's a professional victory for her, at least). The main character makes a decision that is so unbelievable and so idiotic that it is impossible to believe she would make it, and especially impossible to believe the same character from the FIRST movie would make it.
I've liked Kiele Sanchez since 'The Perfect Getaway', and Harold Perrineau since being introduced to him on 'Lost.' And I think Diora Baird can probably act, too, if given the chance. They all need to avoid movies like this.
The first movie had me on the edge of my seat, in awe of the shark-like, cruel monsters that swept into a remote Alaskan town. This movie had me shaking my head in disbelief that whoever made it didn't understand the first movie at all. 'Blair Witch 2' was a masterpiece compared to this. 'Alien 3' was less of a betrayal of 'Aliens' than this movie is to its predecessor. For those people who loved '30 Days of Night', avoid this movie.

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As an avid fan of the first film, 30 Days of Night, I was VERY skeptical into seeing the second, being as it was a low budget straight to DVD sequel. In a way, I wish I hadn't watched 'Dark Days' but in another aspect, I am glad that I did. The first installment was perfect. Everything about it I liked, but the second one, not so much. Though filled with a talented cast, the plot seems to lack character development in the 'survivors' and kind of gives you mixed feelings about each individual. Melissa George's replacement Kiele Sanchez delivers an excellent role, because she takes of Stella very well. The group of Baird, Coiro, and Perrineau was a great group with a variety of attitudes. Overall, the acting was pretty good. I feel that the film was filled with cheap CGI (hense the low budget), and REALLY fake blood, but besides that, 'Dark Days' delivers..until that last 20 or so minutes. The mood of the film turns from being the bada** vampire hunters wanting to get revenge on the clan of vampires for affecting their past in some way, to the group feeling unsure, back to being bada**es, I just didn't feel a method of transition. The story is very good for a low budget, I give it that, the directing, phenomenal, but the movie begins to flat-line in about the last 20 minutes. I felt that the ending was too rushed in, and didn't give enough substance, but it didn't give good visuals either (again, cheap CGI), so I honestly think the ending ruined the whole movie. With a higher budget, and maybe a re-write or two, it could've be theatrically possible, but as is, it remains in the class of a B-Movie. It's definitely a movie to check out, but to the die hard fans of the first, don't get your hopes up like I did. 'Dark Days' is an overall 6/10, maybe if the ending was better then it could've been about an 8/10.

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I enjoyed the first 30 days of night and jumped at a chance to see the sequel. Bad assumption and a definite waste of time. I don't write reviews but this one was so bad I felt the need to warn everyone. With a lot of possibilities the director went for the cheap and lazy way. The storyline is so full of implausible action it is hard to list but for example, the heroine, knowing that bullets only slow the vampires down, went into a very long dark tunnel housing dozens of vampires armed with a pump shotgun with 5 rounds. After firing the 5 rounds her only option was to run. The 3 vampire hunters that she joins are equally clueless and walks into the vampire lair with very few weapons and runs screaming and dies one by one. The ending makes no sense and leaves you saying WTF? Lets hope the makers of this turkey goes back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes.

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Oh the pain.. I am such a fan of movies..and of vampire movies as a genre. This movie offends me as a movie fan AND as a vampire movie fan!
30 Days of Night (the original) was a very fun watch. I was excited to see that a sequel was made. Less excited to see that it was straight to DVD, and even less excited to see none of the original actors. I would compare it to the first movie, but that would be an injustice. Plus, the first movie had a relatively tight script, great to decent acting, a PLOT that made sense and dialogue reminiscent of actual human speech. Also, one of my favorite things to find in movies: characters that act within the realm of the suspension of disbelief!
This sequel (groan) has none of the above. HERE BE SPOILERS!!! From the ridiculous vampire hunters that hunt AT NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES??? to Stella and her weird attempt to bring out vampires with her meetings and then sleeping soundly in a motel, to taking on vampires with a couple guns knowing 'they only slow them down' in TEE SHIRTS???. What???? And why NO ONE USES THE UV lights as weapons en masse..I don't know. I could go on..but there's way too much and it will be light soon.
if you are hungry for recent vampire movies that don't make sense, this is perfect. Otherwise, I'd go rewatch a classic vamp movie..even blade 2 or 3 again with the time this movie will waste.
I really wish I could see what the positive reviewers got out of this 'movie'..the acting and script still make me gasp!
Please please Hollywood..watch before you print and release! btw, I gave a '2' because there were some good camera angles and lighting efforts.
sorry,
Looking for my Near Dark DVD

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Did you see Lost boys? Or Twilight? Or even The queen of the damned? Well, this one is more interesting and the vampires are really bad, not babies, Kens or Carnival girls. I like it. I recommend. Well, it's not a super movie, but it's far more than OK. Vampires are a mythology, and the movie 30 days of night is a good job. This sequel is full of good scenes. I love the sex showed and the end is very good. Soon will be a third one, I hope. I imagine if Blade or Underworld could be this realistic. Please, if you did not see this movie yet because of the critics, don't. The cinematography and the photography are so cool, the costumes, the actors and the deaths pay for the DVD.

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'30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
Sequel to the 2007 vampire hit '30 DAYS OF NIGHT' directed by David Slade. Both films are based on the popular comic series of the same name and adapted by it's author Steve Niles. Ben Ketai co-adapts the screenplay as well as directs this second installment. He also performed both duties on the 2008 TV mini-series '30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DUST TO DUST' as well as co-wrote it's predecessor 'BLOOD TRAILS'. Actress Kiele Sanchez (best known as Nikki on 'LOST') takes over the lead role of Stella from Melissa George who had scheduling conflicts this time around. Actors Rhys Coiro (of '24' fame), Diora Baird and Harold Perrineau (Michael from 'LOST') co-star.
The movie opens with Stella traveling around the world attempting to educate the world of the existence of vampires. It seems the government has covered up the events that took place a year earlier in her home town of Barrow, Alaska (the events of the first film) when vampires slaughtered and fed off the town's population during it's month long sunset. She is approached by three vampire hunters (Coiro, Baird and Perrineau) looking to enlist her help in assassinating the queen vampire Lilith (Mia Kirshner). Reluctantly she takes their offer and teams up with them for the deadly mission.
The film is about what you'd expect from a direct to video sequel, nothing more and nothing less. The production values are decent and the writing and directing is adequate. The acting is decent as well and I like the casting of Sanchez who's just as good at playing the role as George and much better looking. Coiro and Perrineau are nice additions to the cast as well. It's pretty much just what I expected from a direct to video sequel. A theatrical release would have been better though.
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The original '30 Days of Night' was kind of a good vampire movie that made vampires scary again when movies like 'Twilight' and 'The Vampire's Assistant' and the awful Anne Rice books were turning them into imaginary gay boyfriends for wannabe Goth Girls.
This movie, ahhhh, not so good. Stella, who survived the first movie but is now being played by a less talented actress, has teamed up with a team of vampire hunters after her attempts to sell a book go nowhere. They raid the vampire's nest, where the Expendable Black Guy (TM) gets killed, and they find out the vampires are going back to Alaska for seconds. (Now, if we can only get some vampires to attack the Palin family, that would be progress.)
The balance of the movie takes place on the ship, and has an ending that makes not a lick of sense, really.

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The biggest let down is that the vampires are not cold and calculated like the original ones. They seem to be very cartoonish. I was actually kind of disgusted with the acts of the 2007 version, which is fairly hard to say when I watch films.
This film sheds to much light on the vampires' whereabouts and does not leave the uncertainty that brings so much fear to the viewer. The so called vampire hunters are complete idiots and weak. I highly doubt that they would track the vampires that were in 30 Days of Night (2007).
Entertaining watch if anything.

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I loved 30 Days of Night (2007) was outstanding,it was perfect.
Now to Dark Days
I think the first 5-10 minutes of the movie was really good but after that it went down hill, The Vampires did not look that scary in this movie at all and the scare scenes you can see them coming!.
The acting in this movie was NOT great, however not awful but watchable (Not as bad as The Final Destination or the Remake of A Nigthmare on elm street acting) but not far from it.
I did like a few scenes in this movie, They had some really good ideas for this but soon you will forget them when you see, the scenes near the end, (the last 15-10 minutes or so) those scenes were just laughable because it was so badly done.
now to the ending, it was just very, very, very, very Predicable! (I do seem to like at lot sequels and I do mean a lot of sequels ) This movie is worth seeing at least maybe once. but I won't be seeing this again. I may see it again when it come on TV.
30 Days of Night (2007) I gave 9 out of 10 and for 30 Days of Night: Dark Days I will give 3/4 out of 10.

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I had read the graphic novels and I was badly surprised of how from a good story they managed to turn up with this. . .
I mean come on . . . the graphic novel have a very good atmosphere and story, make sense and it's surprising you when you do not expect it.
But this version is having nothing in common with the original other that Stella's crusade to expose the vampires and Eben biting Stella at the end. The movie is so absurd and the sheer stupidity of the heroes wannabe is so annoying that I found myself wishing that they will die faster.
A complete disappointment . . . should have stuck with the original plot like the first movie.

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Stella (this time around portrayed by the anonymous Kiele Sanchez) is one of the few survivors of the Barrow Massacre. News and media sold the events their as a tragic oil-rig accident. This pushes Stella into a crusade for truth, where she roams the country holding seminars about what really happened during the Alaskan darkness. At one such event she decides to out the vampires by turning on ultraviolet lights, which kill a couple of night-stalkers, but also cause havoc and mayhem amongst the viewers. Stella is soon whisked away by the FBI and one agent Norris (Troy Ruptash), who seems to know too much about the vampire threat. Soon released she is confronted by a group of vampire hunters, who enlist her to kill Lilith, apparently the head-honcho bloodsucker.
Loosely based on the follow-up graphic novel of the same name it follows the exploits of Stella. But this time around the film increasingly moves away from the origin material and in doing so quickly losing the intricate planning of the novel. Hence the rushed, unfinished feel of the whole movie, where even actors seem incoherent, erratic and chaotic. In certain scenes the mix of sub-par acting capacity and bad scriptwriting makes the characters run a slalom between panic, drama, heroism, laughter and stoicism, where within a matter of seconds emotions change drastically.
Everything about this movie reeks of quick fixes and short cuts, not enough is done to build atmosphere, storyline or characters themselves. Even more irritatingly the only character that is even remotely recognisable and at the same time likable is killed off within the first vampire hunt (Todd played by Harold Perrineau). I would also like to add that given this was supposed to be a bunch of seasoned killers the whole sequence of the hunt was exceptionally badly scripted.
In the end even the small homage to the original novel does not dispose of the bad taste left over lingering in your mouth. On the plus side the SFX crew did a good job and it never felt like a film working on a shoe-string budget.

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As I have been a fan of the very intense and atmospheric survival horror movie '30 days of night' that played in the frosty Alaska, I gave this second part a try even though there were many negative critics and even though I thought that the ending of the first part was just perfect and would not have needed a second part.
I have then been surprisingly well surprised by this follow up. As the first movie was perfect in its genre this movie goes into another direction. It is set in the sunny part of the United States of America and the hunted become the hunters that want to find the queen of the vampires that sends its monsters around the world to strike again and again. That's why a little group of vampire hunters that have all lived horrible experiences in the past just like the main actress of the first movie that has lost its husband unite and try to avenge the deaths of their beloved family members or friends and to prevent other vampire raids.
This movie is much more filled with action and pace than the first one and orientates less on the atmosphere. This movie pays much more attention on a storyline and explains many things that have been left unexplained after the first movie and is in that way well connected with the first part. This second part is also much more gore and brutal than the first one and has some really ugly and shocking scenes. But still, there are some surprising elements in this movie, especially in the ending that make you think and fear so that this movie is not entirely concentrated on bloody massacre sceneries. The ending is really well executed and closes the circle towards the first movie.
All in all, this movie is surely nothing new or innovating but it doesn't do the mistake to copy the first part and touches a different kind of horror movie that is in my opinion as intense and entertaining than the first one. A true fan of dark and atmospheric gore horror movies will surely adore this flick while people that expect the same kind as the first movie could be disappointed. But nevertheless, this movie is at least worth seven points out of ten and I highly recommend it to any horror movie maniac.

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.. especially sequels done direct to video and featuring a 'Bewitched' style casting change (Stella, the wife of the protagonist in 30 Days of Night, replacing Melissa George).
Looks like screenwriter Steve Niles, the only common link between the two, convinced someone (a backer? A studio? A high school film class?) to produce this sequel.
The odd thing is, it's not terrible, which really sort of a compliment.
Also, the real horror is that the same screenwriter who was clever enough and creative enough to come up with the idea of a nest of vampires turning an Alaskan town into a month-long buffet (the original movie) could do no better here than send the survivor wife on some sort of mission to wipe out all the vampires on the planet.
And, if you have ever seen a vampire movie, you KNOW that's not going to end well.
Speaking of endings, the last five minutes are astonishingly memorable for an otherwise unforgettable film. Something new, different, and totally unexpected happens. Cool.
Also worth it for Sanchez fans. As her later work in KINGDOM would show, the camera loves her, and she has a knack for stealing scenes, even when she is not trying.

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Our favorite people at Stage 6 films have brought us another DTV sequel this time to 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and it wasn't half bad though but it has a lousy ending, to tell you the truth the film has a great concept, the execution is actually good but not great, the acting is above par and the direction is also above average, the major turn off to this film is the twist right at the end, it was actually stupid when I really thought about it because even though it made sense and you understood the lead character's motivations the direction in which the story goes at that point is just random.
Overall, the film has reasonable production value and a good script but as for the ending I think I would've just preferred something different and this film is not really better than the first but not a weak entry either.

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