I recently caught one of the first-ever screenings of "30 Days of Night" (so new, in fact, that writer Steve Niles was seeing it for the first time), and it's a top contender for bloodiest movie of the year. Whether it's bloody good or bloody mediocre is an argument for another day - but after the screening Niles and director David Slade had some bloody interesting things to say about the Josh Hartnett flick.
"Every year, I'd check the paper just about the time [northern Alaska] goes dark, and there was always a little human interest piece about it," Niles said of the inspiration behind the comic-turned-movie. "[I read that] alcohol wasn't legal -- you could bring it into town, but they couldn't sell it there because of the increased suicide rate -- and I was like 'God, what kind of people live in this place?' So I tore it out -- this is like 12 years ago -- and I wrote 'Vampires' on the corner."
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and as "Hard Candy" director David Slade revealed, it took just that many to get Hartnett involved.
"I thought 'No, Josh Harnett won't do this,'" remembered Slade. "But I met him at this little vegetarian diner — we're both vegetarians, isn't that weird? - and he gave me his e-mail address and we had a great conversation. Afterwards, I took a picture of the outside of [the diner] with my camera, and I sent him a thank you e-mail and attached the picture ... apparently that picture was what changed his mind ... He said he'd never seen such an interesting photograph of a place he'd been to so many times."
The result hits theaters October 19 - ensuring that vampire fans have a Halloween flick this year that only sucks in the best ways possible. "I wanted to do a horrible horror film where it is horrible, as opposed to an action movie," Slade grinned. "But at the core is a human drama...so we don't have the blood and the gore and the bodies upfront; we slowly introduce it. But when it comes? It really comes!"
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