Review: Daybreakers

Set in the year 2019 where 95% of the population are now vampires, meaning that human blood is becoming a rare commodity (being of course that it would require actual human beings), and humans are being farmed in a blood-milking factory. With the shortage of human blood, vampires are getting desperate and feral, even feeding on each other, causing all manner of problems (growing wings, for one thing). Sam Neill is the cold-blooded vampire head of the company running the factory/blood bank, and Ethan Hawke is a senior Haematologist. Hawke is also a vampire with a conscience, unhappy with the near-extinction of humanity. Although, the company he works for harvests human blood, Hawke is currently working on a blood substitute for the company. One night he stumbles upon a few surviving humans including Claudia Karvan, who leads him to Willem Dafoe, an ex-vampire who accidentally stumbled upon a cure for vampirism, which Hawke (who was ‘turned’ against his will) is very much in favour of. Whilst Hawke (who drinks pigs blood, not human) works with Dafoe to scientifically replicate Dafoe’s unintentional discovery, it is uncertain whether vampires will even be interested in being ‘cured’. Michael Dorman is Hawke’s soldier brother (in charge of hunting down humans-in-hiding), who is dismayed at Hawke’s human-friendly attitude, Vince Colossimo is Hawke’s co-worker, Tiffany Lamb and Jay Laga’aia are vampire newsreaders (!), and Isabel Lucas is Neill’s estranged human daughter, disgusted by her father.

This 2009 vampire flick from the writer-director team of The Spierig Brothers is a bit uneven, but at least it’s a big improvement on their first film, the terrible zombie movie “Undead”. It’s a much more mature and intelligent film than “Undead”, certainly more ambitious, with a genuinely interesting near-future depiction. We get a somewhat re-designed society that is rather vampire-friendly, to suit its mostly vampire population. However, there’s a certain cheapness given to it (despite a much bigger budget than “Undead”, apparently) via lame contact lenses, cheap CGI flames (though the opening scene is otherwise unsettling), unconvincing American accents, and annoyingly blue-filtered cinematography by Ben Nott, that bring it down a peg or two. The accents aren’t terrible, but they aren’t convincing, even Neill, who otherwise walks off with the whole film. Aussie actress Claudia Karvan’s flat and uneven American accent is the worst, but her overall performance is particularly bad, and surprisingly so, given the praise heaped on her, especially in recent years (For those unaware, Karvan has been acting on TV and in film since the 80s, especially TV, where she’s considered one of our best actresses. I personally disagree with that reputation somewhat). American Hawke is better than Karvan, but a bit bland and forgettable in the lead. And why in the hell does he smoke so much? Why would a vampire (a non-human or at least humanoid creature) want or need to smoke? I just don’t get it. At least the coffee has a bit of human blood in it. I can almost buy into that. Dorman’s pretty good as the conflicted and rather pathetic kid brother of Hawke, as is Southern-accented Dafoe, although the exact nature of his character is confusingly dealt with in the film, initially. Former Aussie soap actress Isabel Lucas, one of the worst actresses of all-time, gives a marginally less sucky performance (no pun intended) than usual.

I just don’t understand the need to set this film in the States. It can’t just be for marketing purposes, because plenty of Aussie-made, Aussie-set films have done OK overseas in recent years. And with a plot that involves some kind of ‘farming’, you’d think Australia would be the perfect, satirical choice, surely. The cinematography, or at least the blue filter really, really bothered me, even more than such things usually do. The reason for this is that the cinematography is otherwise outstanding, but adding an ugly, murky blue filter just ruins it, cheapens it. The production design doesn’t look all that cheap, but the filtered look certainly gives it a cheap visage. Why was everything so blue? Sure we get some blue car headlights, but will they light everything in the frame in a blue hue? No, certainly not. We also get a room bathed in yellow, due to a yellow light. Hey, I’m in a room with a yellow light right now. Guess what? I’m not yellow! Nothing in my room is yellow! Credit where it’s due, we actually get to see the sources of light in the film, so some effort has been made to directly relate the colour to a source of light, but that’s a small point in its favour. Maybe not many of you care about such things, but I get really annoyed with this sort of thing, it takes me out of the whole experience. And if it weren’t so blue, the film would look truly magnificent at times. Mr. Nott knows how to photograph light attractively, so why go and ruin it with all the blue? The sound design is terrific, both loud and effective, and the highlight of the film. Except for the police sirens, they sound like toy cop cars.

Some of it is brilliantly disgusting, especially towards the end. When you see the vampires in their full, wingspan glory, they’re awesome and thankfully nowhere near the dorky, tweener male model fantasy of the “Twilight” series. These vampires are pretty damn disgusting. I’m not so sure about the whole vampirism cure, though. I like that the film comes up with one, but I’m not so sure it really makes any sense. It’s certainly an awfully risky, borderline stupid idea for a cure.

I had heard some good things about this film, but it was a bit of a letdown. I genuinely enjoyed some of it quite a lot , it just doesn’t come together as a truly satisfying whole. It’s better than the awful “Twilight”, but weaker than the terrific (and underrated) “30 Days of Night”, which along with the South Korean film “Thirst”, stands as the best vampire film of the 00s onwards (“Let the Right One In”, my arse).

Rating: C+