Daybreakers (2010)

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Admirable film.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Daybreakers (2009) is an above average vampire film. It's set in the future, which now is less than a year away lol, in 2019. 95% of the population has become vampires, and what's remaining of the human population must hide out or be captured and farmed for blood. But the vampires are facing a big problem: they're running out of human blood and are scrambling to come up some sort of substitute. Ethan Hawke's character is in charge of this at a blood supply corporation headed up by Sam Neil. Their attempts to try to come up with a viable substitute keep on failing until eventually they're faced with vampires who are turning into horrific creatures due to a lack of blood. The film really gets going when Ethan Hawke joins this group of humans. I'm not giving away spoilers so I elaborate on what happens when he teams up with them. I enjoyed this film for the most part, it features talented actors who deliver good performances, nice visuals, and the pacing is well done. It's not perfect, but it is entertaining and well done. 8/10.

I really did enjoy this, but thought it had much greater potential. Would have been cool to see more of the humanity collapsing side, and elaborate more on the cure being distributed. Obviously it wasn't a true story, so it was kinda far fetched. I just find it hard to believe that not any powerful official or government agency would be interested that they found a cure, and them not be able to spread the word.

Set in a future in which close to 100% of the human population has been turned into vampires, the key theme of 'Daybreakers' is survival given an ever-dwindling blood supply due to the increasing scarcity of human beings. Ethan Hawke plays a haematologist employed to find a substitute source of sustenance for when the blood supply runs dry, however, he would much rather find a cure for vampirism itself. Also thrown into the mix are his boss, who would prefer not to have a cure, since the need for blood is good for business, and some renegade humans who believe that they have accidentally stumbled on a cure. Intriguing as all this might make 'Daybreakers' sound, it is a pretty uneven a ride with such a large focus on high octane action and gore that its thought-provoking ideas never feel properly explored. The lack of any explanation for the cause of the vampire disease also feels like a cop-out and while the film does eventually come up with two cures, neither solution is fleshed out in depth, which results in unanswered questions arising. The film boasts a lot of thought and consideration in other areas though. The black-out cars are nifty, there is a darkly comic moment when we learn that vampire animals wandering into daylight have resulted in an increase in forest fires (!) and there is a lot to like in the corporate greed agenda at the heart of the film.

As each genre evolves, it has to find new and creative ways to stay alive and entertain it's audience. The vampire genre has come a long way, from the grainy film stock showcasing a theatrical Bela Lugosi, to the slick, throat ripping Baltic nocturnal terrors of 30 Days Of Night. No other corner of horror (except perhaps the zombie arena) has worked so hard to reinvent, rework and revamp (hehe) it's aesthetic than the bloodsuckers realm, and it's in that area that Daybreakers is a huge success. Not necessarily the most groundbreaking or incredible outing as a film alone, it breaks impressive new ground in the vampire genre and had me wondering why no one had come up with such ideas sooner than 2009! In the year 2019, ninety five percent of the world's population are now vampires, following an outbreak decades earlier. The remaining five percent of humans keep an understandably low profile and continue to dwindle in this harsh new world. There's just one problem: vampires need blood to thrive, and once the last human is drained, they face a serious problem. In this lore, a vampire deprived of sustenance turns into a savage berserker that will attack anyone and everyone in pure feral mania. Vampire scientist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) searches endlessly for an artificial blood substitute, partly out of an instinct to preserve a race that was never his own, and partly out of compassion for the humans he once called kin. Corporation executive Charles Bromley (a downright creepy Sam Neill) hordes the scarce resources, and chaos threatens on the horizon if a solution is not found. A bombshell drops, however, when Dalton stumbles across a rebel band of humans who claim that they were once vamps, until some variable turned them back into fleshy human critters. Led by hotshot renegade McCormac (Willem Dafoe dialling up the grit) they see a glimmer of hope in Dalton, not to mention his scientific prowess. Bromley sees the end of days and gets dangerous with his power, Dalton and newfound friends work to overturn the Vampire order, and gore splatters all over the screen in a sleek, entertaining and supremely gory film that should have a little more infamy. The R rating is gloriously wrung out as gallons of blood are thrown, flung and dripped all about the place and a real sense of supernatural, apocalyptic danger is attained with the story. Neill is an inspired choice to play a vamp too; Even when he's playing a gold hearted protagonist (remember how ominous he got with the raptor claw in Jurassic Park?), there's a semi dormant aura of menace that always dances in those Aussie eyes. Dafoe is at his best when his playing around in the genre theme park, and he's having a barroom blast here, getting to play the ultimate badass. There's a reverence for humanity here too, attention paid to a last ditch effort to save our race from a predatory one that is just trying to survive as well. Terrific stuff.