Daybreakers (2009)   

Review: written August 2020

The Ultimate Blood Feud

A novel idea drives this atmospheric vampire flick (more akin to a zombie flick in fact).. a vampire outbreak has not just started, but has reached its ultimate stage - now human civilisation IS vampire, with office hours now at night time, and the companies farming human blood now the equivalent to multinational energy conglomerates. But only a handful of humans remain, and blood is now getting scarcer and scarcer. This concept is well portrayed with nice touches showing how civilisation has adapted to servicing a night time society - the shielded cars, the tunnels for day time use, signs showing school loading times at 2am to 3am only. The allegory for our non renewable energy supply running out is apt too, with CNN showing the `blood crisis' gradually eroding society as starvation drives the masses to violence and the governments to crack down. The plot is somewhat less interesting, but works well enough, with Ethan Hawke the employee with a conscience, looking for a blood alternative, or even better a cure. His boss, Sam Neill doesn't want a cure - he wants `repeat business'. Then Hawke meets Willem Dafoe, who may just have the answer.

The effects are fine, the idea interesting, and the actors are more than up to the task of making the outrageous ideas believable. If the plot takes a few unnecessary detours (Sam Neill's daughter appears to serve no useful purpose to driving the story forward) and doesn't ultimately offer a very polished ending, it's still very much a journey worth taking, and an admirable attempt to do something new with the genre. Thumbs up.