30 Days of Night

I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early draft of the script before seeing the film and while I thought it was lacking in certain areas, the premise was probably cool enough ride out the bumps in the story. BZZZZT! Nope. Didn’t happen. The red flags in the script waved just as brightly as they did in the movie.
Basically, what we have here is a zombie flick disguised as a vampire movie. Feral vampires. Okay. They don’t wear puffy shirts, nor do they seduce their victims with hypnosis or the promise of immortality. They’re all about the kill. Nothing wrong with that but if the vamps are just catalysts in the story, atleast gives us three dimensional characters that the audience will love/hate/feel something about and this is where “30 Days of Night” fails. I almost wish they took a page from some of the character development that occurred in “The Mist”.
The film hinges on the fact that we’re supposed to buy into this barely developed relationship between Eben (Josh Hartnett) and Stella (Melissa George), a lot of which is unsaid so we’re treated to seeing them exchange pained expressions and muttering something about her leaving town. Maybe it just was a lack of chemistry between the two leads (Harnett is so wooden, he might have tried impaling himself into a vamp or two) or weak character development, but the relationship and therefore the movie didn’t work for me.
I haven’t picked up a graphic novel in years, so I’m totally ignorant of the source material but I’ll say this much: why vampires? Why not zombies, aliens (sounds like John Singleton’s “Executive Order Six” is gonna cover that one) or little monsters that multiply when they get wet and eat after midnight? Seemed kind of random.

Story Starters

Giant bird sightings baffle South Texas residents

Lost fighter plane discovered on beach

Mediums rising in popularity

Mystery monster returns after 121 years

Secret underground temples built by paranormal eccentric

Scientists find biggest bug ever

Toddler survives 20 foot fall

Unexplained blue cloud at gas station

1408

Finally watched “1408” last week. It doesn’t take a genius to point out that a lot of Stephen King’s work is hit or miss on the silver screen. This one hits more than it misses. He was on “Nightline” last week, drumming up interest for “The Mist” -- which opened today. Anyway, he said something to the effect that it’s not about the monsters, it’s what the monsters to do people, what it brings out in them. You can see that in “1408”, Cusack’s character is literally being haunted by his own demons... wasn’t too crazy about the ending but that’s just me. Although “The Mist” is one of my favorites from “Skeleton Crew”, I’m just not that excited in seeing it as a big screen adaptation. The trailer screams “RENTAL” to me...

Beowulf

A 28 million dollar opening weekend is certainly nothing to sneeze at but a lot of folks were expecting “300” type numbers. Don’t know what went wrong. A digital, semi-nude Angelina Jolie isn’t good enough for atleast 40 million? Maybe the PG-13 rating turned off a few. It’s gonna be awful hard to break even with that 150 million dollar budget. I guess flesh and blood actors still have a place in Hollywood.

The Return

Guess that poster for “The Eye” wasn’t so original after all. Speaking of originality, “The Return” sticks its head in the sand, ignoring countless films that have gone down this well-traveled path and pretends to be fresh. Girl haunted all her life by something she can’t quite understand, visits (“Returns” -- get it?) a place she saw in a waking dream, mild terror ensues. The scariest thing about this flick is the poster. Darker than your typical Lifetime movie but not by much.

Eye Candy

It’s probably gonna be lame but that poster is definately an eye-catcher (rimshot!)

Got a jump on some New Year’s resolutions, started on a creature feature a few days ago. One of those low budget, minimal location stories that the Sci-Fi Channel just can’t seem to get enough of. Low budget scripts have always been a challenge for me. No matter how hard I try, a big explosion, stunt or special effect will manage to creep its way into the pages. I totally get that less is more but writing a script while the Budget Fairy hovers over my shoulder tends to wreck my flow.

At some point, I’ll be updating my progress bars of shame.

BTW, be still my heart! Two decent episodes of “Heroes”... in a row!

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Yet another “Underworld” movie is in the works. Instead of latex clad vixen Kate Beckinsale, we get the lovely Rhona Mitra -- perhaps in chain mail? This time it’s a prequel. As much as I thought “Underworld Evolution” was just a dumb chase movie, the franchise still has some life but a period piece?

Speaking of werewolves, I haven’t posted one of my script updates in quite a while. Not stuck, just tired of saying, ‘almost there.’ I don’t want to be *that guy*. You know, spending more time talking about a project than actually working on it. Overall, I don’t think I accomplished a whole lot this year. Fear of failure, fear of success, whatever you want to call it, I didn’t get the job done. Time to step my game up and be more consistent.