Review by Loc
When you lean on a niche genre, it’s hard to innovate in that space. Usually, that niche has gained a modicum of respect and an even larger share of popular sentiment, leading to multiple attempts at exploiting its popularity. You can’t find a better example of this than with vampire movies. Sometimes regarded as the first horror villain, Dracula and his ilk have lived onscreen for decades. The swings have been wild, from camp to drama, horror to comedy, action to melodrama, a vampire film has been made for that audience. Want examples? Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Once Bitten, The Lost Boys, Blade, 30 Days of Night, Twilight, and Interview with the Vampire. So you can imagine, finding a new angle on this classic vehicle is difficult. Quit hit: Ethan Hawke sort of does it.
Does what? Find that new angle, only it’s not new, but it is presently in a fresh style. In 2019, the human population has mostly been converted to vampires, and the remaining humans are hunted and exploited like hemoglobin cattle. Nothing new there. The vampires are also facing massive blood shortages, and blood now represents a dying natural resource. That’s kind of new, but we’ve seen it before. Vampires who don’t get enough blood quickly mutate into “subsiders”, a condition that converts the mostly human-looking vampires into bat-like, claw and wing wielding monsters, a form of malnourishment for blood-suckers. That’s neat, vaguely familiar but cool.
And the world inhabited by vampires is like some twisted alternate reality that employs corporations specializing in the blood trade, cars outfitted with switch-triggered light-blocking windows to allow for “day driving”, similar subway tunnels designed for easy movement underground, and coffee with blood in place of cream. This dark-mirror universe is fun to watch and the little details envelop you in this new world order. In essence, it’s this approach that opens the door to the entire story and gives the audience a reason to invest in another vampire-run society.
Why? Because Ethan Hawke is a scientist working to create a blood-substitute for his greedy, corrupt corporation. And while this plays off very faintly with symbolic pretext, you can substitute blood with oil or gold or diamonds, this isn’t a message movie. This is a slightly slow, semi-gory, tiny-bit campy reverse world, but it’s mostly fun to watch. You have a sorta tortured Hawke, a begrudging vampire who doesn’t want to feed on human blood, making his work all the more important. You have the evil corporation sticking it’s head in there, and even offering a couple chances to speak on class/caste, socio-economic principles by dressing up a deathsquad as a way to handle the subsider problems. Wow, that last sentence was loaded, but don’t worry, the movie is not.
If there was one thing missing from this flick, it was exactly that. The film took a unique angle, but didn’t really bother to follow-up on it. Granted, the filmmakers probably had no intention on making a political statement with a vampire flick, but the set up was there and the potential was never realized. Shame.
Overall, Daybreakers is a fun film, or at least it’s fun enough. The story is simple, the goals are straight forward, and the surprises are few. The random gore was over-the-top humorous, but did seem to come out of nowhere. Then again, it’s a vampire flick, you would expect some ravaging at some point. Yet, it was not so out of place and the entire film was fun to watch. Out of 30 days until the blood supply is gone, Daybreakers averts panic with 18 days. It’s a solid viewing.
Rated: 6/10
