A Thomas Bess review of:

Directed By: Michael and Peter Spierig

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman

Run Time: 98 vampire-laden, delightfully sparkle-free minutes.

Before we get into the review proper, am I the only one who thinks the phrase “Daybreaker” should be shouted by someone like Gordon Solie or Jim Ross, preferably at the top of the lungs? Something like “Oh my gawd he just hit the Daybreaker off the top rope through a flaming pile of barbed wire tables, somebody stop the damn match!” I can’t really be the only one thinking that, can I? Anyhoo…

Truth be told, when it comes to the classic monsters of literature and film, I’m not a big fan of vampires. Not to say that bloodsuckers don’t lend themselves to interesting stories, one needs look no further than I Am Legend, Salem’s Lot or 30 Days of Night for proof, but in the last several years it seems that more and more authors, directors and such have taken to dusting off some rejected Dawson’s Creek script, adding a few creatures of the night and voila, every adolescent girl on the continent is helping said author or director make a down payment on a yacht. Certainly Stephenie Meyer needs to step up and admit her part in this wussifying of vampires but Joss Whedon is not innocent of blame either, no matter how many fanboys might say otherwise (Yeah, I said it). That aside, if you’d all but given up on the vampire sub-genre, hold on for a little longer and give Daybreakers a try. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s an entertaining story with an intriguing premise.

Said premise is as follows: It’s 2019 and wouldn’t ya know it, a bat-borne virus has turned the majority of the world’s population into vampires. Far from falling into ruin, this undead civilization is moving along quite nicely save for one teensy problem. With the humans all but eradicated, the blood supply is running catastrophically low and global starvation is a very real threat. Enter Edward Dalton (Hawke) chief hematologist for a corporation that supplies the red stuff to the general populace. He’s been tasked by his boss (Neill) to come up with a synthetic blood substitute that’ll make all their problems go away and while Ed’s been making progress, the current product has a bad habit of making anyone who drinks it blow up like a water balloon. (Think Street Trash“>Street Trash, but strictly red). While our toothy hero is busy dealing with this problem he’s confronted by the leaders of a small group of humans (Dafoe and Karvan), one of whom used to be a vamp and is now back to being a plain old guy with a nice tan. Knowing that vampirism can actually be cured, they want Ed to help figure out how it was done so they can slowly but surely rebuild the human population. Because the doc’s got more of a conscience than one is used to finding in the bloodsucking undead, he agrees and all is well until his bosses catch on. From there it turns into a standard humans vs. vamps battle royale with quite a lot of gore thrown around before the curtain drops.

So what’s good? First and foremost points are given to the story. Daybreakers doesn’t bother to spend more than a few minutes actually detailing the fall of man, it pauses just enough in the opening to say “Okay, now that you know where all the people went, here’s what’s happening when the vampires are in charge.” Thusly, most of the characters in the first few acts are of the fanged persuasion and while the inclusion of humans was probably necessary from a marketing perspective, I would’ve been just as happy if the movie went by without a single mouthbreather to complicate things. On the casting end of things, I’ve never been a super fan of Ethan Hawke but he does a fine job playing a vampire that’s really more scientist than building-jumping hero. He does get a few moments to shine in the action department, but he’s much more thinker than fighter. Also worthy of note is Sam Neill as the malevolent vamp head honcho–think murderous creature of the night with an equal amount of amoral Fortune 500 CEO thrown in for good measure. Finally, kudos to the special effects crew for a great job on the carnage unleashed in the last act and the equally gruesome work on the “Subsiders”, basically a gnarled, bat gargoyle looking thing that a normal vampire will become if deprived of blood too long. If there’s a follow up, we need to see more of the Subsiders as they’d make an excellent villain for human and vampire alike.

What’s not good? My main gripe with this flick is that it comes off more like the extended pilot for a television series. Which is not to say it looks cheap because it doesn’t, but the story just doesn’t feel complete. When the credits rolled I half expected to hear the serious announcer voice growl, “Next week on Daybreakers…” This shouldn’t detract from your enjoyment of the story, but I’d be willing to bet you’ll be left thinking, “Well that was fun, now what?” And while I wouldn’t really call it a plot hole, one has to wonder why, if the vampires were smart enough to basically keep society going by making a lot of modern conveniences more bloodsucker friendly, how come they weren’t able to maintain a healthy breeding population of humans to keep their larder stocked? Ok, so free range folks would cost a little more and there might be the occasional uprising, but it seems that this whole crisis could have been averted with a little foresight on their part. Finally, while I’m a huge fan of Willem Dafoe, this script doesn’t really give him a lot to do other than spout bad one liners and basically ham it up as the crusty ol’ vampire hunter. Seeing as how Hawke was handling the mild mannered scientist so well, I would’ve thought Dafoe would’ve been more of a straight-up badass; Apparently they needed to make room for a comic relief sidekick too, so they just combined the parts and the end result is like a Caramel Cod or Prune Smoothie, which is to say, two great tastes that belong nowhere near each other.

Should you see it? Well if you’re absolutely burnt out on vampire stories, I’d advise that ya stay away and enjoy a story with a monster that’s less played out, say a homunculus or a basilisk. But, if you’re only fed up with bad vampire stories, give Daybreakers a shot. It’s not perfect, but there’s plenty of grue and absolutely no adolescent angst to be found.

Til next time, always remember that the calls are coming from inside the house.

Tom Bess has sideburns that are so big they might be considered a beard shaving accident from afar. He blames his current mental state on Stephen King, Mike Nelson, Seth McFarlane and Vince McMahon but bears them no ill will. He passes his time writing movie reviews, but will flee the interwebs forever as soon as Allison Mack starts returning his calls.