First Impressions: Daybreakers

For long standing vampire genre fans, the advantage of the current popularity of our toothsome friends is that we get a lot of new films and many of them appear at the cinema rather than going straight to DVD. Last year I saw a good number of vampire films at the cinema. Unfortunately, two of the films that did limited cinema runs never – for shame – got anywhere near me; Let the Right One In and Thirst I look at you.

Of those that did show near me, well in the main they were disappointing, with much stronger films being viewed on DVD. Indeed, I think I went to the cinema more in 2009 than I have in many a year and saw some fantastic films – mostly those I deemed as fantastic were non-vamp; Coraline (which had possible vampire Scottish terriers), Watchmen, Star Trek, Zombieland and Inglorious Basterds all spring to mind.

So, the first Vampire Movie at the cinema for 2010 and… I loved it. Daybreakers is a Spierig Brothers film – incidentally I also liked their previous zombie flick Undead – and is set in a dystopian future where most of the world population has been turned into vampires. The opening scene is fantastic as a young girl, forever a child, goes to meet the sun having left a suicide note that mentions never growing up. It opens the mood of the piece perfectly, this is no fairytale with happy clappy vampires.

Rules start coming to us early on, but the Spierigs were not in your face with them, some were offered with actual subtlety. A single bat started it all – there is a bat motif within the film that might have been annoying, except that I love Crap Bats and I found it quirky – and caused what is clearly a supernatural epidemic. The vampires have glowing eyes, no heartbeat and cast no reflections (and in a moment that I rather enjoyed, we see that clothes do, indeed, reflect). Various methods of killing vampires are shown; staking, decapitation and sunlight being primary ones. Staking is somewhat explosive and sunlight turns them into an inferno. Decapitation leaves the remains intact – useful storywise.

Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a haematologist searching for a blood substitute. The company he works for is run by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill) and the main business of the company is human farming – you’ll have seen posters with Matrix like rig-ups with people being farmed. The army, in which Edward’s brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) serves, is primarily involved in the hunt and capture of humans. You see blood is running out. This is where the film worked perfectly for me. We have seen the plot premise of “take over the world by turning everyone into vampires” time and time again. Well the Spierigs have taken that to its logical conclusion. There might be a dour, in your face political message there about rampant commercialism in our world but, hey, it just took the premise to its conclusion – if you don’t like the message can I suggest its because you don’t like our world (or, perhaps, the mirror being held too closely to it).

This is not an I am Legend world, though certain similarities necessarily exist (as I am Legend is the granddaddy of the vampire – and zombie for that matter – apocalypse story). I read a disparaging review that wondered how people could have refused to be turned. Certainly there was an epidemic (a bite turns) and some, like Edward, were turned against their will. Others, like Bromley’s daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) were offered the bite and refused. Of course they are now on the run, an endangered species.

The lack of blood is becoming a problem. Edward only drinks pig blood and is slowly mutating (his ear has elongated). But others have started feeding from other vampires or themselves and this causes accelerated mutation to a half bat like creature of particular violence – the subsider. Starvation is the key to the mutation, with animal blood barely holding off starvation and feeding on dead vampire blood speeding things up. Subsiders are carrying out home invasions and it seems the vampires have their own bogeyman now – how they are dealt with is, again, a dour looking glass reflection of our own society’s ambivalent reaction to ‘undesirables’ (taken to its extreme).

Edward is involved in a car accident and helps the human’s in the other car, led by Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan). This subsequently leads to his introduction to Lionel Cormac (Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant) – a vampire who accidentally cured himself. If they could replicate the cure they could save humanity – of course the cure in the wrong hands would be disastrous.

I have mentioned the word dour a couple of times and the film is grim – it has more in common with say 1984 or Brave New World than Gothic Horror, and to me that was absolutely fine. I wondered whether there was perhaps a nod to the film the Breed in the costuming, which also featured a stylised, dystopian world. It is also, in parts, very bloody – which is great. This has taken the idea of brutal vampires and placed a veneer of society over them. Then it takes us to the place where the veneer is beginning to crack and lets us watch the carnage. I, for one, appreciated this.

I have always liked Sam Neill – even if some of his role choices have been questionable – and he is perfectly cast in this. Hawke is unobtrusive and Dafoe always gives a top notch performance.

This is recommended, and rather than review the DVD seperately I have added screenshots in as an edit and will offer a score of 7 out of 10. The imdb page is here.