30 Days of Night (2007)

The premise of 30 DoN is for me the best thing about it. It's a vampire story set in an Alaskan town, an icy location that once a year is plunged into a month of darkness. With no daily sunrise to force them into hiding, the bloodthirsty predators don't have to stop feeding (until they run out of food).
The build-up, i.e, before the invasion begins proper, is very good; it feels as if the town is winding down while the people themselves are gearing-up for the long night ahead. It's a shame that that same sense of interest isn't sustained.
Once the killing starts it's little more than fast-moving menaces stalking another pocket of survivors. There's a troubled relationship element that was a nice idea, but it lacks weight and is, frankly, as bland as shit is brown.

2½ cold cuts out of 5

Hard Candy (2005)

HC is an intense psychological drama that feels like it's about to erupt into violence every step of the way. The close camerawork and the methodical way it watches events is claustrophobic but captivating. Both Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson are superb. Page had a tough role to play but she gave it her all, and her running commentary is mostly well-written. Wilson, playing a 32 year-old suspected paedophile that picks up 14 year-old girls, gave an equally strong performance and may even have set himself up for some real hatred from the kind of people that can't separate real life from a film.

3½ ice cubes out of 5

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE [2010]

The third instalment of the popular Twilight films, Eclipse, brings on 30 Days Of Night director David Slade to give it a bit more *ahem* bite.
It's noticeably less mopey than the first two films, hell, I even laughed a few times with intentional humor.  Still the narrative drags it feet with long pointless scenes of teenage melodrama that could be wrapped up in less than 10 minutes rather than the 2 hour running time that it is.  Some of the vamp family gets a tad more interesting than before but never enough to distract from the intense yawns and urges to have a nap for the better half of the film.

2½ training montages out of 5