Daybreakers
By: Amy Nicholson
“Being human in a vampire’s world is as safe as bare-backing a $5 whore,” notes Willem Dafoe in this bloody, blue-toned vamp flick that’s both cynical and schlocktacular. Humans are endangered and they’re to blame; most of their own ranks went vampire for immortality. And why not? It was a peaceful coup—more willing than not—that’s allowed everyone to own slick modern furniture, drive cars with a killer dark tint and settle into a permanent life that’s as bourgeoisie as our own with blood imbibed from coffee shops, not siphoned from thrashing prey. Like ants milking aphids, Ethan Hawke and his money-making hematologists drain the last captured humans for organic AB+ and then balance out their guilt by going the vampire equivalent of pescetarian. But the blood’s running out and filmmakers and brothers Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig are interested in societal collapse—that is, when they’re not more interested in the super cool way their vampires explode when stabbed. Daybreakers is a B-picture with A-list drama pretensions, but it just can’t resist juicing itself with shrieking sound design and thick, wet viscera. Hawke sees this as a serious allegory, but as Elvis, the leader of the rebel human resistance, Dafoe can’t resist winking at the audience, and we wink back. The one upside is the flick’s awareness that vampires aren’t really bad asses; their sun terror and limited diet make them as fragile as the orchids Hawke mists in his apartment. If accepting their weakness can kill off this endless vampire fad, then go see this stat.
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