Saturday, March 8, 2008

When movie characters say, "I know the cold."

Feel free to laugh, laugh into their fictional faces! Because, my friends, they do not. The vampire action in 30 Days of Night was pretty awesome, so it's worth seeing, but I think they squandered their opportunities with the setting.

My first clue was the idea that there's a "last plane out," and no planes fly during the month of darkness. Um, planes can fly at night, so is that plausible? (Online survey says: no. The real-life town it's based on has a regular flight in every day all year, sun be damned).

Then there's much talk early on about the importance of being somewhere with a generator. Which is fine, and I'm sure lots of people would have them. But then the main characters spend a few weeks of sub-zero temperatures holed up in the attic of an unheated house, and clearly the use of the generator would give them away, so it's not running. It's not even the fact that they suffer no physiological ill effects, but that it doesn't seem to cause them even any discomfort. I had more bundling while watching the movie, sitting on the couch in a heated house, than I saw up in that attic.

And of course, there's no visible breath when anyone talks. Not that there usually ever is in Hollywood movies, but once you talk about how much you know the cold...

That could be a scary scene, actually. When the heroine is trapped outside, trying to hide without her breath giving her away. Or they look outside, and their breath steams up the window, and a vampire spots the smudge.

Hmmm, maybe I should have waited to watch this until after the weather warms up...

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