Directors: The Spierig Brothers
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe & Sam Neill
Satisfying as B-movie genre piece, Daybreakers doesn’t demonstrate as much ambition in its execution as it does in its ideas but is generally enjoyable.
Delayed a year before release, Daybreakers, the second film from the Spierig Brothers following their low budget horror debut Undead, arrives in cinemas at a time when audiences are yearning for Vampire romances such as those in the Twilight series than more traditional horror approaches. With the most impressive Vampire film of recent years being 2009’s Swedish horror Let the Right One In, Daybreakers has much to compete with critically as well as commercially within the Vampire film genre. Daybreakers is a film that is filled with many interesting ideas but the execution fails to really develop them effectively relying too much on action and gore to drive the story along which, while entertaining in a John Carpenter style, results in a film that is enjoyable but generally unsatisfying.
In the near future of 2019, a viral epidemic has made most of the human population into Vampires with the surviving humans now an endangered species with many on the run and even more kept in farms where their blood is drained to feed the Vampire populace. With the number of captive humans dwindling and blood supplies running out, Haematologist Ed Dalton (Hawke) is working on developing a blood substitute to sustain the Vampire population and save human lives and prevent a mutation that changes blood-starved Vampires into mindless monsters that prey upon the populace. Sympathetic to preserving the human race, Dalton’s encounter with a group of Rogue humans brings him into a former Vampire/turned human named Elvis (Dafoe) that might provide him with a cure to Vampirism if the Vampire leaders who profit from farming humans will allow him to develop it.
Filled with interesting ideas such as how a Vampire dominated society might function, how it would cope with the threat of human extinction and plenty of political and social allegory over how some society’s are coping in the face of Oil shortages and also how some react to deal with viral outbreaks, Daybreakers certainly engages with some of its ideas and questions it raises. However, when attached to a generally action/thriller based plotline with several attack/chase/escape set pieces littered throughout, many ideas are left undeveloped as the film moves from one explosion or gun fight to the next. Characters are similarly given little time to develop beyond their function outside of the central role of Dalton though several are still likeably portrayed by the actors in those roles. The action sequences themselves, while not outstanding, are generally satisfying and evoke the low budget charm and Grand Guignol of the films of John Carpenter or even Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn.
Ethan Hawke gives a decent performance as Ed Dalton, whose empathy is portrayed satisfactorily but Hawke is never able to infuse the character with much warmth beneath all the brooding. Willem Dafoe however, is much more likeable as the former Vampire, now human Elvis who, while fulfilling the role of heroic tough guy, is generally enjoyable throughout. Sam Neill adds much cruelty to his portrayal of the film’s main villain, the CEO of a company seeking to continue farming humans for profit and therefore unsupportive of a cure to Vampirism and Claudia Klavan is decent in a stoic role as lead female and potential love interest for Dalton.
While full of interesting ideas, featuring decent performances from Hawke and Defoe and some John Carpenter style action and scares, Daybreakers does not always develop its ideas satisfactorily and none of the action or performances are particularly memorable to make this more than an average action thriller.
Rating: 3/5
