Horror through Netflix: 30 Days of Night

In a time when vampires are romanticized into beautiful, elegant beings that we want to befriend or fall in love with (enter "Twilight" and "The Vampire Diaries" here), it's refreshing to watch a movie where vampires are shown for what they really are (or, were imagined to be): creepy, foul, terrifying, blood-sucking creatures.

"30 Days of Night," directed by David Slade and based off the graphic novel by Steve Niles, offers just that. The film takes place in the small, isolated town of Barrow, Alaska. As the month-long period of darkness sets in, Barrow becomes a paradise for a group of blood-thirsty vampires, who savagely begin taking out the locals. The town sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) leads a small group of locals from hiding place to hiding place in an attempt to ride out the thirty days of night and the vampires' quest for blood.

What sets this movie apart from other vampire movies is the portrayal of the vampires. Films like "Interview with a Vampire" began to portray vampires as cultured, attractive, and elegant - an image that makes you think, "I wouldn't mind being a vampire. Or perhaps, "I wouldn't mind a bite on the neck from one of those vampires." (Enter Brad Pitt.) The vampires of "30 Days of Night," on the other hand, are terrifying. You almost want to be them, at a first glance, as they walk around in a calm, cool, and elegant manner in their sheik black suits...

And then you see them up close and how terrifyingly ugly some of them can be. They're unattractive, dirty outcasts. And by dirty, I mean they don't wipe the blood off of their necks or faces after they've aggressively devoured their victims (which seems a bit unsanitary, not to mention it makes them even uglier than they already are - not that they care, of course.) Their black eyes reflect their dark souls, and their yellow jagged teeth (no typical fangs here) are not the kind you want sinking into your skin.

And yet, that's what makes this portrayal of vampires so intriguing: these aren't your typical vampires...well, that is, they're not the typical vampires that pop culture has transformed the image of a vampire into. However, Slade's vampires do get one "cool" point: They speak their own language. While it sounds Scandinavian, or like some mysterious and mythical language you desperately want to learn, it is actually a fictional language created by Slade, Danny Huston (the lead vampire), and a linguist.

"30 Days of Night" is a unique vampire movie that offers a gruesome and terrifying portrayal of vampires (as they should be.)