Vampire Majority
Blood is the Commodity
By Cole Smithey
Sibling Australian filmmakers Michael and Peter Spierig ("Undead" –
2003) flip Hollywood's teen-friendly vampire trend on its head with a
gory sci-fi world run by a majority population of bloodsuckers. In 2019
vampires outnumber humans, and blood supplies are running out. Sam
Neil's sharp-toothed corporate villain Charles Bromley runs a monopoly
that harvests blood from nude human bodies connected chockablock to a
vast blood milking system. Yum. Hematologist vampire Edward Dalton
(Ethan Hawke) is working on a vampire cure that Bromley and his
well-armed minions want to prevent. It's not a far reach to see the
filmmakers' satirical connection between blood and oil as battle breaks
out between the vampires and a group of survivalist humans, led by
Willem Dafoe in full badass mode. The film's pacing misses a few beats
and the capitalist satire never quite pops, but "Daybreakers" comes as
a welcome retort to the vampire bubblegum genre that horror fans have
had to tolerate lately.
Edward
Dalton is a kind of conscientious objector vampire. He's working on a
synthetic blood that will substitute for the actual red body juice that
Bromley envisions selling at a premium price to wealthy vampire
connoisseurs as supplies dwindle. The subplots involving Sam Neil's
diabolical character work better than the predictable resistance group
storyline that functions more as an impetus for some memorable chases
scenes. With less than five percent of the human race left, the vampire
population are protected by police and military forces whose primary
function is to hunt down and capture every last human for harvest. The
problem is that Edward's synthetic blood isn't ready for prime time, as
is proven in one of the film's more spectacularly gory scenes. Still,
Edward's connection to the underworld of human freedom fighters brings
him closer to delivering an actual cure to the problem of blood-fueled
immortality. The satire may not be on a par with a great film like
"Starship Troopers," but there's enough social construct to extrapolate
on how the film's vampire logic reflects on a world owned and operated
by the World Bank as it runs out of resources.
High-concept
horror is a rarity. That "Daybreakers" is being dumped into the January
doldrums bodes well for audiences looking for fast-twitch shocks and
horrific bloody action. The look of the film is designed around the
blue-tinted human harvesting machine prominently displayed on the
poster. The potent image system becomes a visual touchstone to send
your imagination reeling about the ability of a society to farm its own
people, and what that might look like. Frightening too is what happens
to vampires that don't get their daily doses of blood; they
transmogrify into pale winged bat-like monsters called Subsiders whose
quick movements spell trouble.
The
film's greatest achievement could be that it keeps Generation X poster
boy Ethan Hawke ("Training Day") in an action setting where his
modulated style gets more traction than two Nicolas Cages put together.
"Daybreakers" may be nothing more than a guilty pleasure drawn of
exploding bodies in a hermetic atmosphere of shiny surfaces. But when
vampires drink blood from glasses and mugs you know you're on equal
footing with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. "The blood is the life,
Mr. Renfield."
Rated R. 98 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)
