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Daybreakers (2010) promises to add a new wrinkle to the tried and true vampire film genre. Here's the major hook: It's 2019 and humans are no longer the main species on Earth. In fact, we're a minority, third-class citizens, an endangered species and, more to the point, we're hunted down and farmed for our blood -- blood that's used to fulfill the cravings of the planet's ruling population, vampires. The vampires, of course, were once human -- just like you and me -- but a plague turned most of the world's inhabitants into bloodsuckers. So, they resemble us -- albeit a little paler, with funky eyes and an appetite for blood -- and they hold regular jobs and take the subway and live in apartments, but they work reverse hours, live in protected homes and drive UV-protected cars.
It's all somehow civilized, at least on the surface. You see, there's trouble a-brewing, and lots of it. The supply of human blood is dropping precipitiously, vampires are drinking their own blood (creating dangerous mutant vamps in the process) and Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire researcher and hematologist, is racing the clock to create a blood substitute. Edward is a bit of a nervous Nellie. He doesn't thrive on conflict. He doesn't have a taste for blood. And he doesn't at all care for what his company, which is led by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), is doing to humans. Matters come to a head when Edward meets a group of on-the-run humans, one of whom, Elvis (Willem Dafoe) is a human-turned-vampire-turned-human again. If Edward can figure out how and why Elvis became human again, perhaps he can save mankind. But is it too late? Does mankind really want to be saved? And even if it does, will Bromley -- who loves the good health and immortality that come with being a vampire -- let Edward save the day?
Daybreakers, which is set to open nationwide on January 8, looks as if it cost a fortune, but it's actually a very modestly budgeted film shot in Australia by filmmaker siblings, the Spierig brothers, who wrote and directed the production -- having gained a measure of acclaim, particularly in horror circles, for the zombie film Undead (2003). While the cast is top-lined by Hawke, Dafoe and Neill, it also features several talented Aussies, including rising star Isabel Lucas, who plays Neill's still-human daughter and whom moviegoers will recognize from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Claudia Karvan (as a human woman fighting alongside Dafoe), and Michael Dorman (as Hawke's estranged brother, a hard-nosed soldier). And the state-of-the-art visual effects were handled by the wizards at Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop. Oh, and in an age of PG-13, watered-down horror films, Daybreakers is rated R, a rating it earns for violence, nudity, language and one particularly, shall we say, explosive scene.
