| Show Slade revamping his film direction nt John Horn Los Angeles Times Josh Hartnett pretty much had given up on scary movies Even though the horror hits The Faculty and Halloween 1120 had helped establish the actors actor's career early on Hartnett more recently had steered toward artier movies such as Lucky Number and Resurrecting the Champ Then Hartnett met David Slade The British video and commercial director had arrived in Hollywood with a clatter Even though critics were split over his 2005 Sundance sensation Hard Candy studios were eager to engage the maker of the unsettling l low budget drama about a pedophile and his would-be would victim Slade 38 met with the producer of the Narnia movies and was briefly considered for Justice League of America The movie that came together though was 30 Days of Night a 30 million vampire story adapted from the popular r three-book three graphic novels by Steve Niles and Ben Benj j And it was that project that brought Slade and Hartnett together in a bar in Minnesota where Hartnett lives Its a happy place Hartnett says of the combination watering hole and bowling alley And Andas as we were leaving lea David took a couple of pictures of the place The director later mailed e-mailed them to Hartnett after altering the images I didn't even recognize the place Hartnett says It looked haunted Slades Slade's photo trickery convinced Hartnett to return to gore and the directors director's visual manipulations also would prove central to his adaptation of Niles and work Davids whole pitch was he wanted to go back to the core graphic novel says 30 Days of Night producer Rob He felt very strongly that there was a real clean story within the graphic novel Or as clean as a pack of bloodthirsty vampires descending on an Alaska town can be Like the graphic novel the movie unfolds in Barrow the northernmost town in the United States For a month every winter the sun never rises pitching the small working-class working city into darkness Just as the sun is setting for the last time a number of disquieting things start happening Cell phones vani vanish h a helicopter is sabotaged the power fails and all the towns town's dogs are slaughtered Theres There not even mail e-mail The towns town's several hundred residents it seems are stuck But not quite alone Stopping into Barrow for a quick bite are a band of voracious vampires led by a particularly nihilistic guy named Marlow The Constant Gardeners Danny Huston It falls to Sheriff Eben Oleson Hartnett and his wife ex-wife Stella Melissa George to keep the town from being completely overrun by the bloodsuckers The cast includes 3 10 to Ben Foster as a mysterious interloper While 30 Days of Night includes several several- horror staples survivors holed up in an attic a desperate dash to freedom Slade tries to bring freshness to toa toa toa a genre that has been done literally to death t t. When Marlow's band descends on one unlucky family the vampire decides to take a brief respite and plays a classical music record on his fingernail When one of the towns town's residents decides to immolate himself to blowup blow blowup blowup up some vampires he doesn't valiantly go up in inflames inflames inflames flames instead hes he's torn to shreds And the vampires themselves owe little to Bela Lugosi or Dark Shadows They look more like especially wound-up wound skinheads and are shot in nearly black- black white and-white colors which makes the blood all the themore themore themore more striking I wanted to make a scary movie Slade says but the idea was not to make a fantasy So you have to set it in reality as clearly as possible The violence cannot be voyeuristic It has hasto hasto hasto to be true In a way Slade is only picking up where Hard Candy left off That film starred Patrick Wilson as Jeff a year old sexual predator who tries to lure year old Hayley Ellen Page into an unlawful get Once alone Hayley turns the tables on Jeff and before the movie is over Jeff believes he is about to be castrated by his would-be would victim Although the film sold to at Sundance for more than million it grossed just 1 SI million at the box office I thought it was horrible Hartnett says meaning it as asa asa asa a compliment The subject matter made me incredibly uncomfortable and yet it was so well executed And that he shot it in 13 days for I was blown away Like a lot of Hollywood producers and producing partner Sam got an early look at atthe atthe atthe the film as they were looking for directors for their new production imprint Ghost House Pictures a horror label with credits on the hit The Grudge 2 and th the flop Rise Sam and I were incredibly impressed with David Slades Slade's ability to maintain energy and a claustrophobic feeling says Slade eventually brought Hard Candy collaborator Brian Nelson to work on the script the final screenplay credits include Stuart Beattie and Niles and worked to make the movie less formulaic where possible Hartnett's Oleson for example is hardly a Rambo on a mission He actually makes makes' a lot of mistakes Slade says the cliche of Hollywood cinema How can he bemore be bemore bemore more heroic Heroism is something that seemed to sit against the story In the same spirit the brave man who tries to take takeout takeout takeout out as many vampires as he can with a bomb doesn't get a conquerors conqueror's send I 1 wanted to punish him for being that Death Wish character Slade says I didn't want it to end in a ablaze ablaze ablaze blaze of glory He goes out crawling on the ground like an insect Slade and know the films film's real challenge is proving to audiences its it's not just another clone trying to cash in on the Saw spawned fright flicks The same goes for any genre it gets overused and its it's no longer fresh and nd original says But if you make a good movie and its it's original and fresh the audience will eventually find out I s 7 1 |
