William Bibbiani Reviews Daybreakers!
Vampires, historically, have been passionate lovers, mysterious outsiders, bloodsucking monsters, tragic loners and, of course, brooding teenagers, but the clever new movie Daybreakers, written and directed by Australia’s Michael and Peter Spierig, has a more novel approach to the universal horror icon (pun intended): In the near future vampirism has swept the planet like a plague, but without any kind of stigma attached to the condition almost everyone in the world has willingly opted into a life of immortality, and corporations now offer blood-laced coffee for their nutritional needs and sunproofed vehicles that allow daytime driving for the consumers’ convenience. Unfortunately, due to a genetic quirk these vampires devolve into feral monsters if they don’t drink human blood regularly, and with practically every human on Earth now a vampire in need of the same “natural resource,” the entire world is barely a few weeks away from starving to death. At last, the sick thrill of drinking human blood and living in antisocial decadence has faded, leaving behind a thematic interpretation of these soulless demons as… merely impractical?
Daybreakers is a fitting “If/Then” allegory for our modern times, even after over a century of pop culture variations on the Dracula theme have drained all but the last drops of originality from the concept. Indeed, it’s difficult for horror fans to watch Daybreakers without acknowledging the similarities to other genre entries: A world dominated by vampires harkens back to I Am Legend (particularly the short story), the sudden need to find an artificial substitute for human blood conjures images of True Blood (or, if you’re a total geek, The Breed), and the filmmakers couldn’t resist modeling the creatures into which vampires devolve after F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. But it’s safe to say after watching Daybreakers that The Spierig Brothers are aware of the history of the vampire myth and chose to rearrange the pieces on the board rather than change the game itself.
The result is a drastic improvement on The Undead, the low-budget horror movie on which the filmmakers first cut their teeth, and which showed infinitely more promise than actual artistic value. (Of course, the same could be said about the first films of Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, and any number of other great directors.) The plot of Daybreakers, which follows a moody but well-cast Ethan Hawke as a hematologist working on the aforementioned synthetic blood substitute who is contacted by the human underground, led by a mysterious man called Elvis (Willem Dafoe, who manages to bring dignity to the proceedings even while embracing dialogue about “barebacking five dollar whores”). Elvis has an unusual proposition: What if the solution wasn’t a cure for vampirity’s dwindling blood supply, but a cure for vampirism itself?
That cure, the practicalities of which being one of the most clever ideas in a film full of intelligent twists and turns (even if it isn’t explained terribly well), proves as controversial as expected, leading blood industry tycoon Sam Neill to engage in underhanded dealings to retain the status quo, resulting in the film’s main conflict and finally Daybreakers’ memorable – and genuinely disgusting – climax. For a horror-themed movie, Daybreakers is remarkably spare on chills and even action, falling back instead on interesting new takes on familiar concepts and, when that (rarely) fails, sudden spurts of splatterhouse gore.
The finished product is an entertaining moderately-budgeted horror/sci-fi hybrid that is perhaps unlikely to run away with audiences’ money or hearts, but worthy of comparison to such other minor modern classics as Pitch Black, Equilibrium or, perhaps most obviously, Gattaca. Daybreakers may be competing for the same geek audience as Avatar, but that audience will, at least in time, definitely find this film worth their money, support and fandom. Smart, intriguing and well-crafted by filmmakers and actors who clearly respect the material, Daybreakers is that rare January release that, ironically, doesn’t suck (pun, yes, intended).
Daybreakers, a Lionsgate release, written & directed by The Spierig Brothers, stars Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman and Sam Neill, opens in theatrical release January 8th, 2010.
