Sunrise – review

Director: Andrew Baird

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

It pains me when a film doesn’t live up to its potential and this certainly had a lot. Taking a premise that human evil is far worse than anything supernatural it gives us a stunningly despicable antagonist in the form of Reynolds (Guy Pearce, Ravenous), a dour atmosphere that works in the film’s favour but then fails to capitalise on it. Worst, the vampire aspect not only feels tagged on, it actually could be removed and you would have the same film just with a drifter with a grudge, rather than a vampire drifter with a grudge.

sacrifice

Intertitles tell us about a forest demon in the Pacific Northwest, kept sated through sacrifice by the indigenous folk for centuries, it could grant eternal life and, as the settlers came, they named it Red Coat. We then get a glimpse of a woman (Tamara Chanel White) tied to a tree, clearly a sacrifice and then a glimpse of the Red Coat, stood in the distance over something or someone. Then the film cuts to the real evil.

Guy Pearce as Reynolds

Reynolds is, from the moment we meet him, despicable. He is a racist thug with the cracked veneer of a businessman. At the head of the film he is racistly ranting at Mr Loi (Chike Chan), a Chinese farmer. Races don’t mix, suggests Reynolds and then threatens the man unless he signs over the deeds to his farm. Mr Loi stands and turns to walk away and Reynolds throws something at him, for the disrespect of turning his back on him, and then makes sure he is dead.

Crystal Yu as Yan

Three months later and his wife, Yan (Crystal Yu), doesn’t know whether her husband is alive or dead. Ed (William Gao), the older of her two children, is bullied at school and beaten for even looking at Rachel (Sophie Boldt) – this is coming from one of the male classmates, she doesn’t seem to mind but she is Reynolds' daughter making any attraction a recipe for disaster. The family are treated badly by all with Reynolds setting the culture. Perhaps the modern world needs such an in-your-face depiction of this societal evil.

Alex Pettyfer as Fallon

A figure, soon to be revealed as Fallon (Alex Pettyfer), comes staggering out of the woods. On the Loi farm a couple of Reynolds' men approach to firebomb the house. They drop the Molotov, unlit, when the dog starts barking. They’ve gone when the Lois come outside but Ed spots movement in the shadow. The derelict man is there and Ed knocks him out. Yan makes him help her bring him inside. When he comes round he tells Ed he needs blood and the young man bleeds a chicken into a bowl and Fallon drinks it.

drinking animal blood

So Fallon is our vampire but it is underplayed. With a title like Sunrise, you’d expect a sun impact – there isn’t one, nor are there fangs. We eventually discover that, ten years before, Reynolds' mother (Olwen Fouéré) – a racist like her son but obsessed with voodoo, as Reynolds calls it, though it is more appeasement of Red Coat – sacrificed Fallon and his wife (the woman from the head of the film) after Reynolds attacked the (then English born sheriff) after Fallon made enquiries about a domestic disturbance report involving Reynolds' wife. The Red Coat (only seen in silhouette and shade mostly) feeds from her and then feeds the dying Fallon its blood.

William Gao as Ed

Fallon has come for revenge (and thus helps the family) and there was a telling bit when Ed accuses the vampire of not knowing what it is like to be an outsider – ironic not just because officer Fallon was just that but because, of course, the vampire is the ultimate outsider. He doesn’t do much vampiric stuff though. He drinks animal blood from a bowl, he walks into the ill Ma Reynolds room but actually leaves and it is implied that the Red Coat does the killing and he bites Reynolds (causing the racist to not be able to stand normal drink, i.e. he is becoming a vampire too). This is what I mean by being able to strip the vampire aspect away – it wouldn’t really have changed anything.

Olwen Fouéré as Reynolds mother

Pearce is always a good turn and, whilst his character is irredeemable, his performance is as good as you’d expect. He gets the lion share of the script and some interesting insinuations (such as an insinuation of incest with, or at least Oedipal longings for, his mother). Fallon, on the other hand, broods ever so stoically. His story is in flashbacks. The film feels like it needs a longer run time to build the characters more and needed a more inspired climax than it offered. This was never going to offer a big bang finale, the mood is too dour, but it needed more peril for the Lois, if nothing else. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.