Director siblings, The Spierig Brothers make their big budget debut with Daybreakers, a bleak sci-fi vampire flick starring Ethan Hawk, Willem Defoe and Sam Neill. The Spierig Brothers previously helmed the low-budget Aussie horror comedy Undead and with this flick they show what they can do with a bit if cash behind them, check out my review after the jump..
Vampires were once the main staple of horror cinema, from Dracula and the hammer films to Salem's lot and From Dusk till dawn. Then in the late 90s the genre kind of died. Only a handful of Vampire flicks got released, films like John Carpenter's Vampires and The Forsaken, 2 From dusk till dawn sequels and television shows like Angel and Buffy. Then in 1998 director Stephen Norrington and writer David Goyer brought Marvel Comic's character Blade to the big screen. The film mixed stylized martial arts and great special FX to the genre giving it a new lease of life. Although on initial release Blade wasn't the biggest box-office hit but made enough to warrant a sequel, the amazingly titled Blade 2, written again by Goyer but directed by Spanish wunderkind Guillermo Del Toro, the film became a massive hit and introduced us to a new slant on the Vampire myth. Then all that was shat upon by the whiny Emo vampires of the Twilight movies, these films aimed squarely at 13 year old girls, showed that vampires can go out into over cast skies and not burn up but when they get hit by direct sunlight, they don't burst into flames, they fucking sparkle. So its now the second decade of this new century and the girls have sparkly vamps and the butch male viewers have nothing....
That has now changed with arrival of Daybreakers, a stylish sort of futuristic sci-fi horror Noir film from Australian Brothers Peter and Michael Spierig, who in 2003 made the ultra low-budget zombie film Undead. Daybreakers was written and directed by the brothers and marked they're second feature length film.
The plot of Daybreakers concerns a world in which vampires are the dominant species and humans have to hide. The Vampires source of food, human blood, is running out and the lack of this sustenance is changing the vampires, they mutating into crazed winged creatures and are becoming a problem for the vampire society. Dr. Edward Dalton, a vampire and hematologist who works for a pharmaceutical firm, has been working on finding an artificial blood supply that will meet the vampire society's needs. He is sympathetic to the remaining 5% of the human population, he sees his work as a possible way of removing the humans from the food chain of the vampires, which allows them to live. All this changes when he meets a man who has managed to transform himself from vampire back to human.
The cast of Daybreakers is pretty good for a second film. The films main protagonist is Played by Ethan Hawke who when not making pretentious indie-fare is pretty good as a sort of action ant-hero, here he plays Edward Dalton and his performance lets understand his views and sympathetic nature towards Humans. Willem Defoe is great as usual as Elvis, the former Vampire who wants Hawke's help in creating the cure. The only problem with Defoe's performance is his rather wonky southern accent, at times it feels forced. Long Weekend's Claudia Karvan Plays the leader of the 'human resistance' and she also gives the film a great female character. The film really belongs to Sam Neill as Charles Bromley, the head of the pharmaceutical company, he is both evil and elegant in his performance and give the film it's obligatory bad guy. Neill seems to have the evil business man role down to a T.
As a second feature the Spierig brothers are given a much bigger budget and it all seems to be up on the screen, they're direction is good and can only improve. Undead was a great look at the talents of the brothers and Daybreakers seems to push that even further. The only problem with the film is the Spierig's script which is a little confusing and at times will make you wonder what exactly is going on, the explanation of the cure is a bit confusing, something to do with quick bursts of sunlight aimed to restart the heart and return them to a human form. Its very ambitious and just doesn't completely pull it off. But it was a very good try, and the use of old vampire myths like turning into bats and sunlight is great. At least they don't sparkle. The film has pretty good amount of gore which is always a bonus when making a horror film.
The Spierig Brothers are definitely filmakers to watch and if they pull it of then they're next film will make them household names. That film is the very long awaited sequel to 1982 Jim Henson/Frank Oz puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal called The Power of the Dark Crystal.
Is Daybreakers a good film? It is although a little confusing, but definitely a film to watch if you're sick of the emo vamps of Twilight....
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