Daybreakers (Movie Review)

I like a good vampire flick now and then, but these days it’s hard to bring something new to the genre and still leave it feeling like a proper vampire story. The “Underworld” movies brought a sense of cool superhero action to the genre. So did Blade and Ultraviolet, but the former is even more a straight superhero flick with a vampire theme and the latter is barely recognizable as a vampire story at all.

Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Defoe and Sam Neill, creates an entirely new vampire story while keeping it firmly in the genre. 10 years into the future, over 95% of the human population is made up of vampires. Normal humans are an endangered species, hunted down to be placed in “blood farms” to supply food for a starving population of vampires.

Ethan Hawke is a scientist looking for a blood substitute, but he may have just stumbled on a cure. A cure that his company doesn’t want, since it will mean the end of the blood farming business.

Naturally there is a human resistance and of course there are bloody blood-sucking scenes. But two things make this movie a unique vampire movie experience.

The first is the world itself. In a world where most everyone is a vampire, a car chase during the daytime suddenly becomes much more intense than it would normally be. And that’s just one example. The unique application of vampire lore to this world was a high point of interest for me.

The second unique aspect of this vampire flick was the type of relationships focused on. Usually, vampire flicks lean toward romance stories of some kind(if you can really call them that). But family relationships take center stage in this movie and it makes for a refreshing change. Emotional investment in a genre film like this can be hard to come by, but Daybreakers provides characters you can care about.

Although the overall plot is not unpredictable, there are several scenes and elements that took me by surprise, especially one shocking scene near the beginning. Blood sucking also feels painful and unromantic in this movie. Overall, this film is an emotionally engaging experience.

Ethan Hawke is great at being vulnerable, Sam Neil brings some of the menace he displayed in “Event Horizon” and Willem Defoe is Willem Defoe. He also has a fantastic one-liner that had me unexpectedly laughing out loud! Overall, very solid cast performances throughout, with only one slip of an Australian accent (where it was filmed) that I caught.

The special effects are well done, though they aren’t shooting for anything new. I’d compare the quality and frequency of special effects to the first “Underworld” movie. Cool and economical.

There is some brief nudity in this movie, but it is thematically non-sexual and much like “corpse nudity”. (The bodies in question are very dead-looking humans being farmed for blood.)

There’s a little room for discussion of fearing death after watching this movie. But not much, as the point isn’t emphasized. Those who have difference of belief between them and their family members (Be it morality, God or politics) will probably feel a little extra resonance with this movie. But the script is not constructed in a way to make any particular commentary on family relationships in conflict and so discussion is not likely after viewing, even though the themes are strongly present.

This is a cool, intriguing vampire flick that genre fans shouldn’t miss and others may still enjoy for its dramatic elements. There’s not much of philosophical worth to talk about after this movie, but opportunity is there if you scratch around a bit for it.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity.

Quality: 9.0/10

Relevance: 6.5/10