Rating: ***1/2It’s no great secret that there are a lot of Twilight haters out there, so guys, because many of you are guys, this one’s for you. Yes, post-modernism and melodramatic teen romance is for wimps in Daybreakers, a movie that doesn’t just bring back those old vampire idioms, but does it with style. Do like vampires that burn up in sunlight? Vampires that cast no reflection? Vampires that have to be eliminated with an old school stake to the heart? Well ladies and gentlemen, you just found your ride and I think it’s safe to say that you will not be disappointed. Daybreakers has everything a vampire movie needs: mood, monsters and bucket after bucket of blood.
Daybreakers posits a world nine years hence that’s been transformed by some kind of plague that started turning people into vampires. In a little under a decade, vampires have taken over and the human race is on its last legs either being sedated and farmed for their blood or on the run from ending up in such a fate. Sadly though, this isn’t a vampire Shangri-la because fewer humans mean fewer blood supplies. The price of blood is going up and the supply is being rationed, but with the horrible result of lack of blood being a monstrous mutation for the suffering vampire, society is on the brink of collapse. For haematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), whose job is to find an adequate blood substitute, things are a little stressful.
Like a certain other vampire also named Edward, Dalton has mixed feelings about human blood and begrudgingly works on a blood substitute believing it a round about way of saving the human race by eliminating the culling and blood farming. A vampire of such moral fortitude would naturally find allies amongst the remaining humans. Enter Elvis played with winning B-movie hero swagger by Willem Dafoe. Elvis was a vampire, but accidentally cured himself and thinks Dalton might be able to help him find the answer. The solution is ingeniously simple as it turns out, but is it too late to save human and vampire? That’ll be for the sequels to decide. For the most part, Daybreakers is a compelling tale about survival on the fringes, and a fascinating look at a society gone topsy-turvy.
A world of vampires running out of blood makes for a powerful allegory be it oil, food or water. Along with that is the sneaking corporate interest as represented here by San Neill’s Charles Bromley, a Lex Luthor-like business suit that controls the largest supplier of human blood. Neill does evil right in playing Bromley as a slick tycoon that doesn’t see problems, but sees money making opportunities. For the monster maniacs there are subsiders, a mutated, almost zombie-like vampire that’ll feed on vampires once driven mad by long-term fasting from human blood. There is a lot of good bloodletting at the hands and mouths of the subsiders, so despite high-minded literary terms, horror fans will enjoy the guts that Daybreakers has.
But then again, perhaps you’ll just enjoy the central conceit of the film and the fact that it takes place in a world run by vampires. A world where you can buy blood and coffee at the subway newsstand, travel through underground walkways during daylight hours and have your car specially rigged with a series of cameras so you can drive around protected from sunlight. You’ve got to love those little details, and the film plays them beautifully. True, this is one of those futures where everybody dresses like it’s the 1950s, but for high concept on a budget, the filmmakers do a pretty decent job. The bottom line is that Daybreakers is fun, and there haven’t been a lot of vampires movies that you’ve been able to say that about, sparkle-pires and their teenage concubines included.
