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Daybreakers
Then—the Co-Worker!
2010
Review: January 30, 2010
Director: The Spierig Brothers
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman
Sure thing
THE SETUP:
Vampires have taken over and are farming humans for food, there’s a human resistance and… oh dear, it’s time for my nap.
DISCUSSION:
Ahhhh dear, here it is 2010, and what would January be without some shitty horror movie that has been in the can for years and has only now been shuffled around enough and dumped into theaters while nothing else is out? It’s like a seasonal rite. That’s what happened to this movie—apparently it was shot like three or four years ago and sat around because its kind of a mess, and it is only now seeing the light of day. The thing with this one is that it was getting semi-good reviews, saying it was kind of, you know, not THAT bad until the ending, when everything went to shit. And that turns out to be exactly the case!
Before the film started there was a preview for Pirhana 3D that said “the magic of 3D has taken audiences from the vastness of nature to the ocean floor.” Uh—so the ocean floor is no longer included in “nature?” LOVE it. These people only know when something SOUNDS important, they don’t actually know what the words mean. And this actually ties right into the movie we’re about to see—because in the near future, people who can write will be endangered, and functional illiterates will slowly replace them.
Anyway, the movie. So it’s 2019, and vampirism has spread to the point where vampires are the dominant species and humans are farmed for food. Only the supply of humans is running out, and the ones in the farms are dying, and they have to find a blood substitute like, NOW. First, let’s pause to say: futuristic sci-fi combined with vampire horror? AWESOME. We note from the credits that this is written and directed by The Spierig Brothers, and they they are also credited with creating some of the special effects.
There’s a good effect right up front, too, when you have a bunch of vampires standing waiting for a subway, and when a train goes by, they fall into shadow and only their eyes glow. Grab onto it now, folks, soon it will be all guns, girls n’ gore. Oh, and cars, too.
So Ethan Hawke is Edward Dalton, hepatologist charged with creating the blood substitute. He works for Sam Neill, president of this big corporation that farms humans and such. It’s nice to see Sam Neill again, and it’s REALLY nice to see him being super evil, which he does so well. Here’s to you, Sam! They test the blood substitute on this guy, with surprising results! But it doesn’t work. So, rules of our future world established, let’s bring on some supplementary characters!
First comes Ed’s brother, Frankie, who has joined the army—that now goes out on missions rounding up the last surviving humans. Turns out that Ed feels all bad about eating humans’ blood—of course, he’s our hero—and tries not to when he can help it. He’ll just have a salad. Then suddenly this sort of man-bat thing is inside, and feeling ornery. This is what vampires turn into when they go too long without blood, and they’re called “subsiders.” Someone soon says “Ugh—these things are in the suburbs now.”
Meanwhile Ed has had a car accident with some humans, who he helps, because he really likes humans! There he meets Audrey, who is, of course, a leader of some resistance movement. She shows up the next day with a map to meet her leader under a tree, since she sees that he’s a hepatologist, and a friendly hepatologist is exactly what they need. Ed goes out to said tree, where he meets Willem Dafoe as Elvis. Not THAT Elvis, unfortunately, although it would have been AMAZING. They’ve barely said how do you do before Frankie shows up with a Vampire Invasion Force to save Ed from himself, resulting in a car chase where Ed has to avoid beams of sunlight from bullet holes—kind of a cool idea. This is one of those movies where vampires can hang out all day as long as they avoid DIRECT sunlight.
SPOILERS > > >
So they arrive at the hideout of the human resistance, where Ed is to start studying for a cure, and we meet new characters that will do one crucial thing or another, then drop out of the story entirely. The music turns syrupy as we hang with the human resistance. By the way, Elvis is a vampire that was CURED of his vampirism somehow. And Ed thinks he knows how.
BUT! The Vampire Invasion Force is headed their way! But! Ed wants to finish his experiment first! But! In the cities, the last humans are dying out, and riots are breaking out! We see guys in business suits at a Starbucks-like coffee shop scrambling to lap spilled blood off the floor! But! Ed’s experiment worked—he is now human again, and he’s found a cure for vampirism! The cure, by the way, is exposing them to sunlight just enough, but extinguishing them before they go up in flames. Oh dear, but is it too late?
Then! Out in the desert, one of our peripheral resistance characters picks up a human girl. Super, just what we need—more characters. Then! They get ambushed! This is when we find out that humans can shoot a crossbow, striking a vampire 50-100 feet distant DIRECTLY in the heart—in COMPLETE DARKNESS! Turns out the girl they picked up—is Sam Neill’s daughter! They bring her in to reunite with daddy, who she doesn’t seem too happy to see. Neill, who has partnered with Frankie, gets Frankie to turn the daughter into a vampire, because having dad do it himself—well, that would be improper—even in metaphor! Around now you start to think “Boy, this thing has really grown listless.”
We have news reports telling us that the “subsider epidemic” is out of control, and military forces go out and round them up—clearly an analogue to the homeless. They lead them out into the sunlight in chains, and we see that Neill’s daughter is among them—he is sending his daughter to her death! Too bad this is all just one completely extraneous story element that doesn’t tie into the whole except in the most tangential way. By now, the entire film is just a narrative spatter.
Leaving you time to ask: Why must Ethan Hawke ALWAYS be wearing vests?
So they go to Ed’s co-worker’s house. Remember the co-worker? No? Probably because I didn’t mention him. Probably because he was of no consequence, until now, when he suddenly shows up and provides a crucial turning point, then disappears again. So Ed and Audrey get captured by Neill, and Frankie has eaten Elvis. Heavens, things are looking dire for our intrepid heroes!
Blah, blah, Neill chomps down on Ed—love ya, Sam—and, whaddya know—the cure for vampirism is to eat the blood of a “cured” person. How conveeeeeenient. So Sam is human now, and when they send him down among his troops—he gets devoured by his own troops! Who then turn human—and get devoured by other troops. And they ate two friends, and they ate two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.
< < < SPOILERS END
I’m always fascinated on how movies that turn out to be messes ended up that way. Given how this one turned out, I thought for sure it was adapted from a graphic novel or something, because there’s just too much story and way too many characters, which is usually the hallmark of adapting a story and being unable to pare it down to the core elements. But—it’s not! It’s an original story. Which leads to my second supposition, that the Spierig brothers came up with the story ages ago, and had years and years and years to elaborate on it and invent new twists and crucial characters… THEN found they couldn’t pare them down for a 90-minute movie. As it is, this just really seems condensed from something, as there’s just too much to learn about the workings of the vampire world, there are too many characters, and many story twists. We meet key resistance figures like the guy that rescues Neill’s daughter—and immediately gets shot. There’s also a Senator on the resistance team—who turns out to be nothing. Not to mention that Neill’s daughter could have and should have been left out of the film entirely, as she doesn’t add much of anything. That’s why I was chuckling so much when the co-worker turns out to provide a pivotal turning point, as he barely registers until that moment.
The other thing in this vein is that the film just has too much social metaphor to go around. They seem to have come up with a bunch of ideas about how the breakdown in society shown in the film echoes economic collapse and the homeless and big pharma and global warming and the habitat of the pygmy marmoset and the struggle to get rid of baked-on, spattered-on stains. They just try to throw everything in and again—they just needed to edit and focus. Plus, by this time, I really wouldn’t mind some science-fiction that DIDN’T have any social criticism! How about that? It’s become almost a requirement that all science-fiction and horror, no matter how lame, MUST have some social criticism component and you know, if it’s just going to be college sophomore-level, why don’t we just skip it entirely? Just have it REALLY be about vampires that farm humans for food. Why not? Maybe filmmakers and screenwriters should have to apply to some sort of authority if they want to toss some social criticism in their film, along with all the decapitations and car chases and guns.
Okay, so too much story and too many characters and basically just a big mess, but is it fun to watch? Yes, it is! It’s too bad they’ve screwed themselves out of any sequels by trying to fit a miniseries into 90 minutes, because this has enough interesting content for, well, a miniseries. The whole concept of vampires having taken over is interesting and holds lots of potential, as does the idea of farming humans for food. But it’s still generally fun trash, its beginning markedly better than its end [which just turns into a big boring shootout], but it’s short and amusing and has good ideas. Too many of them.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
It’s fun. Then again, somehow this seems MADE for cable.
