Daybreakers

"Daybreakers" is a vampire movie unlike any other. It's got an original take on the mythos combined with a cool science fiction premise. It all takes place in a futuristic world where the vampires have already won. It's the opposite of every single other vampire film where a couple of blood suckers are preying on us. Here, nearly every human on earth has been converted and we now live in a world where no one goes outside at night, people have blood in their coffee and any human that is spotted is captured and forced into blood farms, where they are hooked up to life support and drained of every drop to feed the vampires. The story follows Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire desperate to find a blood substitute before all of humanity goes extinct and vampire-kind follows soon after. Hope comes in the form of "Elvis" (Willem Dafoe), a human who claims to have a way to save us from ourselves.

I love the central idea here and how well it is executed. In a clever move, writer/directors Michael and Peter Spierig never clearly establish vampires as creatures that are either magical or scientific. They say that it is UV light that makes them burst into flame, and they appear in video camera equipment but not in mirrors. Crucifixes and holy water are never even mentioned so there never moments when you will be telling yourself "Well, why don't they just do X and fix everything? " We bypass any points where the vampire society is beginning to form and just jump right into the meaty part of this world, the point where things are getting really desperate. No need for explanations on how everything happened, who developed the cars with the blacked-out windows and how the disease spread all over the world. None of those are important because that's not what the story is about. You won't even be thinking about those trivial details because the film is a ton of fun to watch.

The characters in "Daybreakers" are likeable and realistic. Even with them being vampires they feel like natural evolutions of real people and the performances are strong (particularly Sam Neil) Normally when a vampire would die, you'd be relieved, but here you feel conflicted. You realize that this was a person and that this world is in real trouble. Everyone has been forced into a situation they don't like at this point but their actions all make sense. If everyone is a vampire, should you really feel bad about drinking blood? Particularly when it grants you Immortality and you would have been captured and thrown into a harvesting machine if you hadn't turned?

The film also delivers the goods. This is an R-Rated film, which means there is cursing (but not excessive, just the right amount to make the dialogue sound real), nudity (once again, not excessive, only when it truly makes sense), and a whole lot of blood and violence (particularly towards the end of the film where it really amps up the gore) It's a movie that knows what it is and all of the choices in the plot, dialogue and revelations help make everything feel that much more "realistic". I think this is one of the smartest vampire films I've seen in a long time.

Some of the criticisms I have concern the special effects, which aren't perfect and the ending, which I embraced fully but will probably bother some people. It's minor stuff. You'll be impressed by the originality and execution of "Daybreakers". (Blu-ray, January 13, 2013)