What can I say? I watched Priest and liked it. So I figured "why not give Daybreakers" a shot? Plus I was relaxing at night and a bit tired and saw it on Netflix.
"Daybreakers" is an Australian sci-fi/horror film in the vampire genre made by the Spierig brothers, who earlier made the very unusual "walking dead" film Undead. And it is quite possibly the most novel take on vampies I have ever seen. Not so much the vampires themselves, who actually are quite old fashioned in their portrayal actually but the setting and story.
In Daybreakers, we see a world where ten years before the start of the film vampires become known and the vast majority of the world elect to become vampires (you know, that whole living forever thing). Humans are now an endangered species that are hunted and farmed for their blood. And there simply are not enough humans left in the world to feed the vampires, who are starving and desperately working on creating a blood substitute. This is because vampires when denied blood for long enough slowly degenerate into animalistic creatures called "subsiders" that are vicious, predatory and pretty much not sapient. Meanwhile the few remaining humans hide (and in some places are helped covertly by some vampires) and try to survive. It is in this backdrop our story starts.
The movie centers around a vampire hematologist who is working on the blood substitute (played nicely by Ethan Hawke) and a small group of humans (watch for great supporting performances from Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe) whom he encounters and winds up trying to help. Also in the cast is the great Sam Neill, turning in yet another strong performance as Charles Bromley, a vampire executive in charge of the company working on the blood substitute.
First, the good.
The story is well told and highly imaginative. The notion of the people of the earth getting lured by immortality into potentially dooming themselves (too many people become vampires and then how do they all feed?) is novel in the genre - it sort of turns the usual vampire movie convention on its head in that instead of humans hunting the hidden vampire it is the vampire society hunting hidden humans.
In this vein, I have to give special recognition to the care and detail that went into constructing a depiction of our modern world only inhabited instead by vampires. The depiction feels real because they took care in both big and little details. For example, cars with special equipment allowing driving during the day. Also little things like school playground signs with the times reversed to show the playground is open at night. In a way the movie is viewworthy for this alone - it is a demonstration of filmmaking as art. I should also add that this is a small budget film (only 20 million) but does not look small budget at all - shades of 28 Days Later in that respect.
Also, it is well acted. As I already said Hawke, Karvan and Dafoe all turn in solid work. And then there is Sam Neill. This guy is like Karl Urban and also like old style character actors (like Ricardo Montalban) in that he never "mails it in". Even in the horrid "Event Horizon" he threw himself into a really poorly written part and was the only watchable aspect of that film. Really no one in Daybreakers mails it in - and that is commendable.
Then the bad.
I would say that the main "bad" in the movie can be spelled in four letters...
G O R E
I knew from Undead that the Spierig brothers like their films bloody. But this was over the top. On the good side the gory scenes are in isolated spots; on the bad side when they did happen they were way overdone. It does not make me "fail" the whole movie but it is a detraction. I hope when they do the remake of "Captain Blood" we don't see the same thing; somehow seeing Captain Blood do something like tear out Captin Levasseur's innards would reduce the enjoyment of seeing Sabatini's work brought back to the screen...
Overall, Daybreakers gets a "worth watching" grade from me. I liked it despite their use of about 500,000 gallons of fake blood. I think you might also.
"Daybreakers" is an Australian sci-fi/horror film in the vampire genre made by the Spierig brothers, who earlier made the very unusual "walking dead" film Undead. And it is quite possibly the most novel take on vampies I have ever seen. Not so much the vampires themselves, who actually are quite old fashioned in their portrayal actually but the setting and story.
In Daybreakers, we see a world where ten years before the start of the film vampires become known and the vast majority of the world elect to become vampires (you know, that whole living forever thing). Humans are now an endangered species that are hunted and farmed for their blood. And there simply are not enough humans left in the world to feed the vampires, who are starving and desperately working on creating a blood substitute. This is because vampires when denied blood for long enough slowly degenerate into animalistic creatures called "subsiders" that are vicious, predatory and pretty much not sapient. Meanwhile the few remaining humans hide (and in some places are helped covertly by some vampires) and try to survive. It is in this backdrop our story starts.
The movie centers around a vampire hematologist who is working on the blood substitute (played nicely by Ethan Hawke) and a small group of humans (watch for great supporting performances from Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe) whom he encounters and winds up trying to help. Also in the cast is the great Sam Neill, turning in yet another strong performance as Charles Bromley, a vampire executive in charge of the company working on the blood substitute.
First, the good.
The story is well told and highly imaginative. The notion of the people of the earth getting lured by immortality into potentially dooming themselves (too many people become vampires and then how do they all feed?) is novel in the genre - it sort of turns the usual vampire movie convention on its head in that instead of humans hunting the hidden vampire it is the vampire society hunting hidden humans.
In this vein, I have to give special recognition to the care and detail that went into constructing a depiction of our modern world only inhabited instead by vampires. The depiction feels real because they took care in both big and little details. For example, cars with special equipment allowing driving during the day. Also little things like school playground signs with the times reversed to show the playground is open at night. In a way the movie is viewworthy for this alone - it is a demonstration of filmmaking as art. I should also add that this is a small budget film (only 20 million) but does not look small budget at all - shades of 28 Days Later in that respect.
Also, it is well acted. As I already said Hawke, Karvan and Dafoe all turn in solid work. And then there is Sam Neill. This guy is like Karl Urban and also like old style character actors (like Ricardo Montalban) in that he never "mails it in". Even in the horrid "Event Horizon" he threw himself into a really poorly written part and was the only watchable aspect of that film. Really no one in Daybreakers mails it in - and that is commendable.
Then the bad.
I would say that the main "bad" in the movie can be spelled in four letters...
G O R E
I knew from Undead that the Spierig brothers like their films bloody. But this was over the top. On the good side the gory scenes are in isolated spots; on the bad side when they did happen they were way overdone. It does not make me "fail" the whole movie but it is a detraction. I hope when they do the remake of "Captain Blood" we don't see the same thing; somehow seeing Captain Blood do something like tear out Captin Levasseur's innards would reduce the enjoyment of seeing Sabatini's work brought back to the screen...
Overall, Daybreakers gets a "worth watching" grade from me. I liked it despite their use of about 500,000 gallons of fake blood. I think you might also.
