Daybreakers is a 2009 vampire themed action horror starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Claudia Karvan. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘Twilight has forever ruined vampires for me, they are so overdone’, and in general I agree, but I have to make an exception for this movie; it doesn’t conform to any of the traditional vampire story lines and really the vampires are more a vessel for a delivering a plot line more befitting an action movie than anything else.
According to the mythos of Daybreakers, in the year 2009 a mysterious plague spread throughout the world transforming most its population into vampires. Over the following years, society adapted to the change by making their cities, cars and homes vampire friendly, i.e. sun proof, and hunting down, capturing, and farming any remaining humans for blood to be sold to the public. The movie itself is set ten years after the plague in 2019 when the world is undergoing a widespread blood shortage causing vampires to starve and devolve into primitive, mutated, violent creatures known as sub-siders who attack and feed off other vampires. The largest blood-farming corporation, Bromley Marks, employs hematologists, including our hero Edward Dalton (Hawke), to find a blood substitute before both humans and vampires die out completely. Just as the sub-sider problem turns into an epidemic Edward encounters two humans, Audrey Bennet (Karvan) and Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Dafoe), who claim to have found a cure to vampirism. Naturally, this being Hollywood, the Bromley Marks has ulterior motives that aren’t in humanities best interest and therefore, with the help of the military, attempt to hunt down Ed and his human friends and violent, bloody wackiness ensues.
Daybreakers is a visually appealing film with an imaginative premise and plot-line the runs the gambit from action to dystopian “Big Brother” futurism to zombie-esque horror all with a couple decent plot twists thrown in. if one wished to look hard at the film they might find a few inaccuracies like the unrealistic amount of blood spatter the film makers manage to get out of one exploding corpse, but, honestly, if you’re the sort of person who is going to take serious issue with the realism of a vampire movie you should probably stop reading this right now and go get a life. Ultimately Daybreakers is a fun, clever, and largely unappreciated little action horror film and if you like gratuitous violence, spontaneous human (or in this case, vampire) combustion, and blood-suckers you, like me, will love this movie.
Daybreakers IMDb page
Daybreakers IMDb page
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