company: Lionsgate
and FFC Australia
year: 2010
runtime: 97′
directors: Michael Spierig
and Peter Spierig
cast: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe,
Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman,
Vince Colosimo, Sam Neill,
Isabel Lucas, Paul Sankkila
writers: Michael Spierig
and Peter Spierig
cinematography: Ben Nott
music: Christopher Gordon
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Playing a like a belated companion piece to the troubled 2007 adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, Daybreakers brings audiences face to face with the dystopian world of 2019, in which a recent plague of vampirism has turned society topsy-turvy with the monsters in the majority and humanity on the verge of extinction. Dastardly Mr. Bromley (Sam Neill) heads a blood-farming corporation that’s running dangerously low on supplies, driving the price of blood sky-high and leaving a good many law-abiding vampires hungry and disenfranchised, their hunger transforming them into toothy winged miscreants who run amok in the darkness feeding on one another.
His civilization on the brink of collapse, Bromley hires a consortium of brilliant vampire minds to devise a viable blood substitute and save the day. Among the scientists is one Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire not so keen on the facts of his newfound biology as most of his fellow citizens. Though working on a blood substitute as he is paid to do, Edward is more interested in finding a cure to the vampire condition all together – a cure to which human ‘Elvis’ Cormac (Willem Dafoe) and his few living friends may hold the key . . .
There are some big ideas afoot in the Spierig brothers’ Daybreakers, notably of the abuse of corporate power and of corporate culture’s infiltration into the government (something that should speak well to present-day audiences) as well as more general notions of social injustice, the rounding up of humans for foodstuffs or a systematic government-sponsored extermination of the growing population of transformed vampires. It is unfortunate, then, that these ideas are allowed to go so underdeveloped. The Spierig brothers’ screenplay puts too much on the table for such a brief film (just 97′ minutes to develop and resolve the problems of a potentially apocalyptic dystopia, credits and all), trying to be a corporate thriller, action picture, monster film and gory horror flick all at once. The result is a film that offers up a hat full of tantalizing what-ifs but very little in the way of real satisfaction, playing like cliff-notes to a potentially grand and sadly unrealized larger project.
Daybreakers is a case in which the trappings that surround the story are of far more endearing than the story itself, and thankful for said trappings I am. The city that serves as the primary locale is a sun-hater’s paradise, complete with darkened windows, subway trains and a network of fully enclosed building-to-building skyways. The coffee bars serve blood instead of creamer, their thirsty patrons watching their elected representatives bicker about human rights on the television. Those wishing to venture into the daylight can do so in custom cars, fashioned with intricate camera and maintenance systems that allow drivers to see the road and auto-repair standard troubles (flat tires, et al) without risking their un-lives.
The updated mythology offers up some exciting visual moments – staked vampires explode while their sun-exposed kin burst into all-consuming flames – as does the gore that dominates the final act. Starved vampire soldiers feast amidst flailing limbs and geysers of blood in scenes that have more in common with Romero’s Day of the Dead than anything in the recent vampire tradition, beautifully amplified with some gloriously tasteless slow-motion photography. Particularly enjoyable is a moment of poetic justice, with the villainous Mr. Bromley being fed to his voracious former employees.
The gore effects are of ample construction and are predominantly of the bread-and-butter latex and corn syrup variety so many of us crave. The beastly transformed vampires are well designed even if the scripting fails them (positing them as either dangerous monsters and pitiable victims as required by the shaky drama) and make for a few decent shocks along the way. The extensive CGI necessary for the realization of the near-future backdrop fares considerably worse all around, a failing more of budget than of design. Lionsgate was either unwilling or unable to foot the bill for the sort of detail needed to render the animated moments effective. Far more tragic is the composition of the narrative, whose thick plot ends up too stripped down and jumbled to work. The pacing is quick, certainly, but at the cost of good storytelling. The accomplished cast of name actors is welcome but entirely superfluous, failing to make anything memorable of the so-so material.
Daybreakers did relatively well for its budget bracket, earning back more than double its production expense of $20 million in theatrical release, and loaded DVD and Blu-ray packages were released into the home video marketplace just last week. I really wanted to like this one, and perhaps set myself up for an inevitable letdown in the process. Still, I didn’t hate it. Daybreakers proved enjoyable enough if entirely mediocre, and I’m not hurting any for the experience. Keep your expectations low and enjoy the gory flourishes.
