Rogue

There’s not much to say about this new Aussie horror endeavour except: It lives up to expectations. It’s by the same guy that made Wolf Creek (Greg McLean), and is about a bunch of tourists (including the usual whinging Poms, Yank Wanks, jolly Paddies and lovable Aussies) getting picked off on a Northern Territory river cruise by a big croc.

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. In an industry so mired in pretentiousness (the previously mentioned Wolf Creek a case in point), it’s refreshing to see a film so joyfully steeped in its own cliché. McLean is masterful when it comes to direction, building up a surprisingly subtle sense of dread without very much gore at all, and the croc – a.k.a the world’s ugliest Muppet – is way scarier than any all-CGI creature.

The cast are stock standard, and revel in their nameless caricatures characters. Yes, it is enormously irritating to have the sexy American bloke (Michael Vartan) become the hero of the piece when Stephen Curry, John Jarratt, and Radha Mitchell are all on board and have potentially interesting backstories that don’t seem to go anywhere, but it’s the film’s only real drawback. Well, that and the fact that Vartan’s travel writer seems to like communing with grasshoppers.

There are major plotholes, and the last third is uneven, when half the cast seem to disappear and leave Vartan to fill centre stage, but the croc and the carnage make up for it nicely.

Want brilliant dialogue and intriguing characters? Go see something else. Like seeing a large animal twist, break, and dunk puny humans as if they were Oreos? Rogue is the movie for you.

30 Days Of Night

30 Days Of Night was a story with a lot of potential. Vampires prey on a remote Alaskan town where the sun is down for a month? Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?

Well, they have. There was a very successful and intelligent graphic novel by Steve Niles based on the concept. It was even called 30 Days Of Night. Unfortunately, except for the name, David Slade’s (Hard Candy) film seems almost unrelated.

It starts off well. There’s a creepy guy in a fluffy jacket, and Josh Hartnett’s sheriff looks like he may be one of those reluctant heroes you can rally behind emotionally. But ten minutes in the fun stops. Permanently.

To summarise, Eben (Hartnett), his estranged wife (Melissa George) and their arctic friends spend two interminable hours running from house to house in a clumsy endeavour to keep the uneven pacing moving. The gang of survivors are stock, uninteresting, and unmemorable. The gore is lacklustre and unaffecting, and the occasionally good scene is mired down by the subtitled, pompous gruntings of the bloodsucking beasties and stupid subplots involving rusty machinery and asthma. I’ve just saved you seeing the film because this is, in fact, the whole film.

It’s not fair really, because it looks damn good. Barrow is a place no-one would want to be at night, even without the vampires. Bathed in icy, foreboding tones, and adorned with dark crawlspaces, the scenery creates a stirring sense of dread. The vampires, likewise, are horrors to look at… at first. Without the pounding bass of Muse over the trailer, the 30 Days Of Night experience is reduced to the bare, hollow bones of a good idea.

Casual viewers may weather the boredom to scrounge a humdrum scare from this mess, but for fans of the book, two hours will feel like thirty days of excruciating outrage.