Movie Review: Daybreakers (Vox Magazine)

Movie Review: Daybreakers

By Lauren Zima

Daybreakers has a lot in common with last year’s hit horror/comedy Zombieland: Both movies went big on gore, boast old-school, gun-wielding defenders of humanity, and don’t take themselves too seriously. And both are fun to watch.

But Daybreakers is more of a movie with a message than Zombieland was, and part of that message is that audiences can still enjoy classic, blood-dripping-from-their-chins vampires as opposed to ones with sparkling skin a la Twilight. In this film, vampires rule the world and humans are on the verge of extinction. Vamps have only one month before the blood supply runs out, and if they don't find a substitute, they'll morph into crazed, deformed creatures.

Ethan Hawke plays the vampire scientist responsible for developing a substitute, and he’s got a soft spot for humans. This is where the movie’s main message emerges: Vampires are abusing their power and treating humans (which most of them used to be) like property, not people. So Hawke hooks up with a group of humans in hiding, and from there the film takes off: Enter Willem Dafoe — total rock star.

Indeed, Dafoe’s character is even named Elvis. Elvis is a vampire who turned back into a human (the “cure” he discovered is ridiculous, but accept it) and wants other vampires to follow suit. Elvis spends the film shooting vampires, speeding in classic American muscle cars and spouting down-home phrases such as, “I love a good barbeque!” when he’s about to fry some blood-suckers. Dafoe, like Woody Harrelson in Zombieland, makes the movie.

Daybreakers also goes classically vampire on the blood-and-guts parts of the film — brother-director due Michael and Peter Spierig have spared no expense. The plot is unique — it makes vampirism a fact of life, not a secret society with across-the-ages history. Daybreakers’ main problem is that its plot points don’t make much sense — are vampires so stupid that they’d wait until they had only a month’s worth of blood left to try to solve the problem? And what exactly the “cure” is gets confusing by the end of the film.

Ultimately, viewers will leave theaters excited, but in a way that makes them want to go home and order better vampire-butt-kicking movies on Netflix. And we recommend Blade, Underworld ... basically anything but Twilight.

Vox Rating: VVV (out of five)

Originally published Jan. 23, 2010

Photo from Lionsgate