Daybreakers - A modern Vampire flick in the veins of UNDERWORLD

Will it suck in a good or bad way?

MOVIE REVIEW I've had this one lying around for a few years, and tonight finally got the thumb out and watched it with no expectations to talk of. I mean, the cover looks kinda dull and all... But it was quite a decent vampire flick, actually.

Title: Daybreakers
Genre: Bitey action thriller
Prod. year: 2009
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Isabel Lucas

Another Underworld?

It's yet another one of those dark, slick looking, clinical pieces, set in the far, FAAAR future...like 2019... It's a sort of like an Underworld set some 28 years later (see what I did there?), where the vamps have already won the battle against the humans. They don't bother explaining how it came to this, so just accept it and leave all sense of logic on standby for 98 minutes, because it just is what it is.

Anyway, the few people still left untouched by the vile fanged creatures are now treated as outlaws, hunted down by the police (who are also vampires) in order to quench the citizens continuous thirst for human blood. After years and years of parasiting (or "farming", as they like to call it), off human vessels like there was no tomorrow, the stoopid ass vampires have now finally come to realise there's a new threat to their already prolonged existence.

The vamps have won... but already lost

Feeding off humans to the brink of their extinction, they've been biting themselves in the butt in the process, as they're now eventually running out of food. It's a catch 22 kind of thing: They keep feeding - they die. They settle with ketchup instead - they go bonkers first, then die. Or to put it another way, they simply; Can't liiiiiiiiiiiiiiive...............with or withooooooout you, as U2 singer Boner himself would've said.

Not everyone's as short-minded as their thirsty peers, luckily. The lead role, played by Ethan Hawke, hates being a vampire. Yet he works for a company producing vampire groceries, farmed from the human captives the pigs have dragged in. He strives to develop an artificial substitute, however, and seems to be right on track. Sounds like problem's solved right there, and that could be the end of the movie, but it obviously isn't. It's just the premise of the movie, which I obviously won't spoil for you.

Ethan Hawke and Claudia Karvan in Daybreakers.

Nothing beats Kate Beckinsale in a skintight latex pajamas, obviously (for the unaware: I'm again referring to Underworld), but the cast is pretty good in this one as well, with Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill both in leading roles. There's also a female protagonist in here, played by Aussie film star Claudia Karvan.

Daybreakers is well worth a view, in my book, especially if you're into this kind of movies! Although it may not appeal to the more faint of heart, teenyboppin' Twilight and Vampire Diaries fans, however. This is no relationship drama tucked into some emo outfit with glittery white face paint - this is the real deal!

7.5/10

/theJo

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