This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

So what’ve we got here? Vampires? Check! Ultra violence? Check! Horror movie??? Check! Yeah this is a recipe for disaster and I’m here to report that the movie holds absolutely nothing back. It’s going for the Gold Trophy in overall edge and violence and absolutely earns it without any real competition. There’s not much positive to say about this movie so strap in folks because we’re going for a ride!

The story takes place in Alaska right before the ominous 30 days of no sunlight. Most people head out to wherever they live during these times while the rest prepare to brave the cold as they always do. These guys have been able to survive in these temperatures for ages and are confident they can pull it off again but things change when a mysterious guy shows up and causes trouble. The heroes lock him up but it’s unclear how he even got here. Also he says his crew is coming by soon to take everyone out. See it turns out the vampires are real and they are descending on the town to murder everyone. The heroes will have to hold them off for 30 days….yeah this won’t be easy.

Now there are some interesting things you can do with a plot like this. The concept of a survival film of the heroes using the terrain to their advantage and trying to survive is quite sound. But…it doesn’t work against vampires. See this movie should have either gone with normal humans as the enemy or creatures. I’ll explain. Lets say World War III happened and a bunch of enemy soldiers came into Alaska to murder everyone. It makes sense that the heroes would have the advantage with the cold and hiding in the houses. Likewise if you’re fighting a bunch of creatures you can also set up traps and such.

None of this applies to vampires because they all have super strength, speed, and endurance. You can’t really set traps for them when they can smell you from a whiles away and hear every little sound. When they attack the humans there isn’t even really a fight because they just tear them to shreds immediately. The whole survival aspect quickly becomes moot because the humans just get slaughtered each and every time. I felt like the film threw away the most interesting angle by making the enemies vampires.

Instead a good portion of the film is the heroes just hiding in a balcony as different characters get impatient and are eaten one after another. There are so many scenes where someone just gets attacked by a group of vampires, over and over again. The most annoying scene had to be when one of the older guys just had enough so he runs outside which forces others to go after him and then things go badly for the various characters. You’re putting everyone at risk when you do selfish stuff like that. There’s no way that would ever be worth it but in the moment the character just doesn’t care.

The film tries to throw in a quick romance subplot with Eben and Stella who had been going through a rough patch but this situation forces them to have to be together for a while and potentially get past their issues. It doesn’t really have much of a purpose in the film and there’s no real time for it anyway. I’d say I just wanted to get back to the action but in a way I guess this beats those parts.

See, the film is trying to be as violent as possible so the vampires biting people is actually a lot more explicit and dragged out than normal. I already don’t like blood sucking and this is more like Werewolves with how they chomp on the humans. They even toy with/torture some of the humans before murdering them. There’s certainly a whole lot of blood throughout the film so this isn’t for the faint of heart. We do get a true fight scene near the end which was a nice change of pace. Even this one couldn’t resist a Mortal Kombat type finishing move but at least we did have true combat for a second there. The victor makes no sense given the power gap but hey the movie had to end at some point. I would have just written in some kind of extra weakness or an additional advantage that the human would have to shake things up. Now that would have been a good move.

Outside of everyone being murdered the film also adds in other dark themes like choosing to murder your friends and family or let them get eaten alive. Obviously it’s a lose-lose situation at that point but the idea is you’re basically pressured into a decision there. It’s always a rough one to have to watch. Then we also have the classic animal violence here as some animals are destroyed quite violently. Yeah there’s a story reason for this but it’s still an awful moment all around that should have been cut out.

The film won’t even let heroes get a painless death. One guy has the bright idea to blow himself up and a whole building rather than letting the vampires eat him. I completely get it too because that makes a lot of sense…then he ends up surviving the explosion. The character was shocked and I was as well. Like seriously guys? Naturally that gives the vampires time to gloat and then finish him off. The whole point was for him to avoid that so the film felt extra mean spirited there. There is no reason the character should have survived that, just give him the dignity of a quick death. That should have been on the table for him.

That’s just the tone of the film though. It’s not enough to slaughter the humans but it always has to be done with such ferocity and hopelessness for the humans. The vampire designs are intense I’ll give them that. You would absolutely feel intimidated to see one out in the wild because aside from the stats they just look really scary. The film delivers on that part and the atmosphere is definitely really intense.

I would even go as far as to say that the very beginning of the first act isn’t super bad. Before the animals die which is still very early in the film I’ll grant you that much. But we see everyone leaving and know that something is approaching. It’s a very ominous start but ultimately the film overplayed its hand of making the enemies basically invincible next to the main characters and that was the end of the game. All you need to even the odds is make it so that they are not bullet proof. One or two bullets can destroy them. Do that and suddenly we’re looking at a movie where the humans have a real chance and things can get interesting.

Overall, If you want to see a bunch of vampires slaughtering a bunch of defenseless humans then this is the film to check out. It reminds me a lot of pre arc Attack on Titan but at least there they had some semblance of a chance. The humans here can’t do much since guns don’t really help do anything other than buy time. The vampires are too powerful and also there are just too many of them. They really needed some kind of extra weakness to make this a lot closer. Something that would actually make this a very valid hunter vs prey type movie. Ultimately the movie isn’t able to make this premise work and is relentlessly brutal. Definitely skip it!

Overall 0/10