I went to see 'Daybreakers' at the cinema yesterday. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a movie about a world where vampirism has spread like a plague (there's a nice little advert shown within the movie with the caption 'Find out how one infected bat started it all!' which was a nice touch) and the population now consists of 95% vampires to 5% normal humans. When the story starts, it's the year 2019 and the vampirism epidemic has been spreading for about a decade. With so few humans left, the vampiric majority are in the midst of a blood shortage so severe that their scientists are estimating that there is only enough blood left to last until the end of the month. Ethan Hawke's character, Ed, is the vampire race's chief haematologist and in charge of the effort to create a working blood substitute. The only trouble is, Ed is secretly a human sympathiser and after an accident brings him into contact with a group of human survivors on the run, things start to go pear-shaped in a big way.
This movie is not without its flaws. You can't help but think that they must have swiped the idea of a blood substitute from the 'Blade' movies and the look and feel of the movie is also very 'Blade'-esque. To be brutally frank, you could say that this is a Blade movie without Blade in it (some people might go one step further and say that they've already made a Blade movie without Blade in it with 'Blade: Trinity'... but that's a topic for another day, perhaps). Also, it is pretty cheesy in places. Finally, there are inconsistencies and plot holes so big that you could drive a double-decker bus through them and a major plot device (which I can't give any details about without completely spoiling the movie) is more than a little absurd. While it's undeniably true that the film-makers haven't thought their 'world full of vampires' all the way through to its logical ends, you have to realise that it's obviously less important to the film-makers that the film works on the surface level of 'this is a movie about vampires' and more important that the movie works on an allegorical level. Make no mistake, this movie is clearly an allegory for our own world's current energy crisis. If you read 'blood' as 'fossil fuels' and the few remaining human survivors as the vocal minority who are saying that we have to change the way we live our lives completely if we're going to survive as a species, then 'Daybreakers' works extremely well. It even opens with a scene of a young girl (vampire) committing suicide in the sun because she feels she has no future in the face of the blood shortage; when you realise what this movie is actually about, this opening scene becomes all the more poignant.
This isn't to say that this isn't a great vampire flick, though. The film-makers are clearly lovers of the vampire, as there are references and winks to virtually every vampire movie ever made, all the way back to 'Nosferatu' and this love really shines through. The cast are clearly having a ball, particularly Willem DaFoe and Sam Neill, and the movie is such an obvious labour of love that you can't help but warm to it. Despite it's deeper, more serious, message, this movie is a great deal of fun and I would feel churlish not to forgive it for its surface-level inconsistencies. I had a blast watching this movie and I wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of the horror/science fiction genres... especially those of you who are getting more than a little tired of 'Twilight' and its sparkly vampires. To the anti-'Twilight' brigade, 'Daybreakers' will serve as a very welcome shot in the arm.
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