When vampires discover that the town of Barrow, Alaska "enjoys" 30 days without sunlight every year, it jumps to number one on their list of vacation hot spots. Without any viable means of communication or transportation, how do the people of Barrow survive the attack?

Now that you have the plot, here are some of the good and bad things about the film:

Good

* The vampires in the film felt like creatures, and not humans who happen to enjoy sucking people's blood, a la "Blade." The vampires don't care that they have blood on their face. In fact they enjoy it, and why shouldn't they, they're vampires. I had never thought about it, but if there were real vampires, they probably wouldn't use a handy wipe in between meals. Once the blood goes on, it doesn't come off.

* Ben Foster is great as the "stranger" who starts causing trouble at the local diner. As soon as he appeared on screen I thought, "Okay, this is starting to get good." Then you find out that he's only in the film for five minutes. (I could actually put this one in the "bad" category)

* There's an interesting "idea" at the end of the film involving Josh Hartnett (although they didn't utilize it very well.)

Bad

* The film starts slowly and still fails to create any characters that you care about. Should I root for Josh Hartnett to survive just because he's Josh Hartnett? When you watch a horror movie, you don't care about the girl who's making out in the car and then gets stabbed to death, because you know nothing about her. The characters in this film are just one step above that girl.

* The movie is full of horror movie cliches, including the, "I don't want to stay here because this is where it's safe! I'm freaking out! I'm going to run outside so you can chase me and we can both get killed!" And the, "I heard a scary noise over there where it's dark and there's no light. I better go check it out."

* The writing is not very good. Characters say things at times that a normal person wouldn't say, given the situation. If I'm trapped under a car and there are vampires nearby, I don't want to hear that we're going to watch the sunrise together. I don't want to hear talking at all, because you're going to get me killed.

* The story is all over the place. There were times when I was confused about what was going on (and I'm not one of those people that are always asking questions during a movie). The movie jumped from scene to scene leaving me wondering, "Where are they? How did they get here?" I feel like the entire second act of the film could be cut into any order and it would make just as much sense. Bad storytelling.

* The climax of the film is less than fulfilling. I mentioned an interesting "idea" earlier, that could have been pretty cool, but it completely fails to deliver. The "final battle" is not very good.

* The film is not scary at all. There is never really any suspense (which isn't helped by the lack of interest in the characters), and there really aren't any cheap scares either.

* No alcohol during the 30 days of darkness? Really? It's night time, not 1920.

"30 Days of Night" is not a terrible movie, but it's definitely not a good one either. If you haven't seen it yet, save yourself the money, and wait for the DVD.