Reviewed by Kate Rodger
“Life’s a bitch, and then you don’t die”. Being a vampire sometimes isn’t that much fun. Especially when the human blood supply is getting thin on the ground and you and your vampire mates are in danger of turning into nasty bat-like bloodsucking creatures who make your bog-standard vampire look cute and cuddly.
Daybreakers is a fairly fresh twist on the vampire genre. It’s 2019 and the world is over-run with normal everyday vampires. The remaining humans are hunted and then farmed for their blood, and there’s not many of us left.
Sam Neill is Charles Bromley, an evil vampire who heads up a corporation on a mission to engineer a substitute for human blood in order to save the vampires from their nasty fate. His chief scientist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is losing his faith, and has a crisis of vampy conscience about their bloodsucking ways. He finds himself rather suddenly in league with the few remaining humans, and on a path to seeing the light to a brighter future for them all.
That path is, of course, crowded with all sorts of drama and intrigue, some brotherly conflict, a bit of romance, some male bonding, a few crossbows, and doused heavily with buckets of blood.
Willem Dafoe plays a good guy, and a rare one; a vampire who freakishly managed to become human again. He holds the key to a new world. It’s up to Edward (must all good vampires be called Edward?) to get it into the lock and turn it.
This film is made across the ditch, and in-between bloodbaths you can play “spot the Home and Away actor” (Isabel Lucas), and then there’s that kiwi guy from Star Wars (Jay Laga’aia).
I am not an expert in vampire lore, and confess to being more than a tad squeamish, so for me there was just a little too much bloodlust to make this my perfect cinematic outing. The story idea is quite a good one though, stylishly delivered, and getting Sam Neill as an bad vampire was a nice wee treat.
Three Stars.
Daybreakers
:: Directors: Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig
::
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Isabel
Lucas, Jay Laga'aia, Vince Colosimo
:: Running Time: 117 mins
:: Rating: R16 - Contains Violence, Offensive Language & Horror
:: Release Date: April 15, 2010
::
Official Site: Click here
source: newshub archive
