Yesterday I decided to go off and see '30 days of night' at the cinema. It's the latest graphic novel to film adaptation to hit the big screen. In many respects its a straight ahead horror/survival movie. It was kind of like 'Pitch Black', cross bred with 'The Thing', but with vampires.

The film is set in Barrow, Alaska, a small town on the Arctic circle. Every winter the town is plunged into darkness for... no prizes for guessing... 30 days of night. The film begins with a dirty looking guy trudging through the snow, looking like he's on his way home from a bad night at the pub. A large number of the residents of Barrow are heading south for the winter, leaving around 150 residents behind. At this stage the standard rules of horror films are applied. We are introduced to the townspeople, whilst at the same time, strange things start happening. All the satellite phones are destroyed, the town's only helicopter is sabotaged and all the sled dogs are killed.

The towns sheriff, Eben (Josh Hartnett), begins to investigate, and finds that his "estranged" wife Stella (Melissa George), has been stranded in Barrow, having missed the last plane out of town. The couple are reunited when Eben arrests the dirty scrubber from the opening of the film under suspicion of committing the towns recent crime spree. The scrubber isn't exactly a ray of sunshine, and lets the sheriffs office know that "death is comin' for 'em".

So that's the setup out of the way. The towns cut off, there's an unknown evil coming, and there's some unresolved sexual tension between the two leads. Cue the slaughter music. Vampires running amok, heads on spikes, gratuitous gore, the sort of stuff not for the squeamish. The population of the town is quickly whittled down. A handful of survivors take refuge in an attic, hoping to wait it out. This is where the claustrophobic survival element comes into play.

Overall we learn very little about the vampires, which I found a little disappointing. Where did they come from? How did they get there? All we really know is that have worked for centuries to make humans believe they are "nothing more than a bad dream", and that they are vulnerable to sunlight and can be killed by the age old beheading method.

The story goes on from there, more blood, more gore, but if I say much more I'd give too much away.

How does the story differ from the graphic novel? Well, the main differences relate to the vampires themselves. In the graphic novel, a group of vampires flock to Barrow to feed without having to deal with the lethal sunlight. The novel features a vampire elder Vicente, who learns of the vampire plan and travels to Barrow to end the feeding, in order to preserve the secrecy of vampires. That plot line isn't really covered off in the film.

Is it any good? Well I would rate it higher than your standard slasher film, but you'd struggle to describe it as ground breaking. Give it a look if you're into vampire or horror films in general. Give it a miss if you find an episode of ER to be a stomach churning experience.

I'd give it 3 out of 5 pickles.