TThere's blood on the snow in "30 Days of Night" (Columbia). There's also an excess of gore on screen in this lurid, over-the-top exercise in horror.

As Barrow, the northernmost town in Alaska, prepares for its annual month of darkness, Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) has more on his mind than the impending departure of his estranged wife, Stella (Melissa George). Bizarre things are happening: Cell phones are being stolen and burned, mush dogs are being slaughtered, the power is suddenly down. There's also a stranger (Ben Foster) in town making dark, oracular predictions.

These come true when a group of piranha-toothed vampires, led by an undead amateur philosopher named Marlow (Danny Huston), takes advantage of the prolonged night to begin a throat-ripping, blood-sucking rampage.

The population dwindles speedily until a small band of terrified survivors, headed by Eben, Stella and the sheriff's younger brother, Jake (Mark Rendall), are all that remain. Can they hold out till the far-off dawn?

Director David Slade's film, based on a popular graphic novel, starts off well. The basic idea is clever, and the initial scenes are promisingly subtle. The vampires, for example, move at superhuman speed and are shown, early on, only as flashes of dark or as shadowy figures in the background. Foster is also enjoyable as a kind of hillbilly from hell.

Restraint is soon abandoned, however, and the action becomes needlessly gruesome. These latter-day vein-drainers are a far cry from the demure Draculas of yore; they're more like crazed beasts than mere bloodsuckers. And the means adopted by Eben and his crowd to destroy them are a gruesome example of the cure being every bit as bad as the disease.

As though the mounting carnage were not sufficiently off-putting ,there's also an exchange between Marlow and a trembling victim in which the latter cries out to God, only to have the vampire look around in mock wonder, exclaiming: "God? No God!"
To which we feel duty-bound to reply: "Good? No good!"

The film contains pervasive violence with gore, mutilation, torture, much rough and crude language, occasional crass language, one use of profanity, an irreverent remark and a drug reference. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

• A-I -- general patronage;
• A-II -- adults and adolescents;
• A-III -- adults;
• A-IV**
• L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
• O -- morally offensive.