I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Just so...so bad

Blistering performances.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

An original vampire flick? Impossible! Yet, the Spierig brothers managed to flip a typical clichéd vampire story on its head to create something as fresh as human blood. That doesn't prevent the overall production from feeling inexpensive, but it maintains your attention throughout. A vampire hematologist is tasked with researching for a blood substitute as the remaining human population dwindles, meaning vampires will have no blood left. Just the originality alone is enough to quench our bloodythirstiness, considering it was released during a period of genre saturation (no thanks to 'Twilight'). The Spierig brothers fortunately managed to perpetuate a sense of intellectual world building, particularly in the first act. Immediately, this dark futuristic world is thoroughly explored, from the degenerative "subsiders" to the laboratory farms that harvest humans. Retaining dark gothic aesthetics without requiring towering spires and grand cathedrals. The story, whilst executed basically, illustrates the desperation that the vampire race is facing. Humanity faces extinction and the chic vampires face degenerating into psychotic bat creatures. There was just enough meat in the plot to keep me invested. Hawke is consistently decent as always, same can be said about Dafoe, both giving convincing and moody performances. Neill was perfect casting as the corporate antagonist, exhuming a menacingly calm demeanour. The visual effects however, were B-grade at best. So horrendously cheap looking that the production value deteriorated instantly and, on multiple occasions, took me out of the film. Laughably poor. The final act loses its intellectual plot and succumbs to mindless action with blood gushing everywhere. Whilst I appreciate the practical effects during these sequences, it just lets the overall narrative down. All that build up with minimal payoff, ultimately leaving a metallic aftertaste. For what it is worth though, the innovative premise, world building and performances converted me.

The idea behind the movie is genious. A bat-bourne plague that has turned nearly every human on the planet into vampires. The vampires struggle to survive due to limited amounts of human blood remaining. It's an amazing idea, and the new "vampire world" is beautifully crafted. Cars that are can drive the vampires around in the sunlight, coffee-shops that serves different bloodtypes down in the subway. Unfortunately for us the plot, struture, and visuals are lacking, and lowers the movie down to another generic splatter movie. I would recommend watching the movie just for the screenwriting. It's a cool world the screenwriters created, that had a lot of potensial. I would love to see a graphic novel adaption of the world we see in "daybreakers".

What if we lived in a world where vampires have to harvest humans in order for them to survive overpopulation and a dwindling blood supply? That's the basic premise of this Australian horror film and it does stand out midst the over-saturation of vampire films over the last decade. Boasting a couple A-list names in the cast, the performances are quite solid: Ethan Hawke plays Dr. Edward 'Ed' Dalton, a vampire scientist who has been disillusioned with his immortal lifestyle for a long time. After a chance encounter with a human female resistance member (Claudia Karvan), Ed is soon pulled into the fight to end the vampire reign of terror for a new blood supply. Hawke brings a vulnerability and almost youthful world-weariness as Ed, portraying him more like a human trapped in a vampire's body, longing to be free of the curse of needing human blood to live. Hawke's costar chemistry is enjoyable as he has an underlying flirtatious yet compassionate affection for Claudia Karvan's Audrey to a uneasy (at first) but loyal friendship that develops with Willem Dafoe's Lionel "Elvis" Cormac.Playing the bad-ass, crossbow wielding Lionel or better known as Elvis is the bearded and always enjoyable Willem Dafoe. Adopting a solid Southern drawl that draws from his character's nickname's sake, Dafoe brings his usual grizzled persona to the former vampire turned human. Being a world-weary resistance fighter, Elvis doesn't hesitate to remind the new recruit, Edward, what the world has come to in the crisis happening around them. Dafoe doesn't hesitate to add some humor to the character in order to defuse the tension in a scene; most evident in Elvis and Edward's first meeting where Dafoe sings a few bars of an Elvis Presley song or during a tense meeting with one of Edward's former colleagues where Dafoe quips a scorching one-liner to who he and Audrey are, "we're the folks with the crossbows." As the sole female lead, Claudia Karvan's Audrey is no damsel in distress despite being taken hostage near the end of the film. Audrey doesn't hesitate to pull her crossbow on Edward when they first meet when Audrey and some other humans are escaping to the safe-haven of the vineyard. However she grows to trust Ed after he aids her and her fellow humans' escape and when Ed agrees to help find a cure. Audrey's loyalty is more than evident to Ed when he sees the bond Audrey has with Elvis; she saved the latter's life after Elvis was burned by the sun which rendered him back to human form. Karvan and Hawke's Ed almost develop a budding romance as the film moves forward, but the filmmakers don't taint the narrative by keeping the relationship between them as cordial and more like comrades in arms.The movie exudes a gloomy atmosphere by utilizing specific color palettes like grays dark blues for the cityscape where the vampires live, dark shades of yellow for the countryside vineyard where our heroes hide from the threat of being captured by vampire militia and of course red is a dominant color due to the presence of blood in a vampire film.Enjoyable for any vampire movie fan.

As each genre evolves, it has to find new and creative ways to stay alive and entertain it's audience. The vampire genre has come a long way, from the grainy film stock showcasing a theatrical Bela Lugosi, to the slick, throat ripping Baltic nocturnal terrors of 30 Days Of Night. No other corner of horror (except perhaps the zombie arena) has worked so hard to reinvent, rework and revamp (hehe) it's aesthetic than the bloodsuckers realm, and it's in that area that Daybreakers is a huge success. Not necessarily the most groundbreaking or incredible outing as a film alone, it breaks impressive new ground in the vampire genre and had me wondering why no one had come up with such ideas sooner than 2009! In the year 2019, ninety five percent of the world's population are now vampires, following an outbreak decades earlier. The remaining five percent of humans keep an understandably low profile and continue to dwindle in this harsh new world. There's just one problem: vampires need blood to thrive, and once the last human is drained, they face a serious problem. In this lore, a vampire deprived of sustenance turns into a savage berserker that will attack anyone and everyone in pure feral mania. Vampire scientist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) searches endlessly for an artificial blood substitute, partly out of an instinct to preserve a race that was never his own, and partly out of compassion for the humans he once called kin. Corporation executive Charles Bromley (a downright creepy Sam Neill) hordes the scarce resources, and chaos threatens on the horizon if a solution is not found. A bombshell drops, however, when Dalton stumbles across a rebel band of humans who claim that they were once vamps, until some variable turned them back into fleshy human critters. Led by hotshot renegade McCormac (Willem Dafoe dialling up the grit) they see a glimmer of hope in Dalton, not to mention his scientific prowess. Bromley sees the end of days and gets dangerous with his power, Dalton and newfound friends work to overturn the Vampire order, and gore splatters all over the screen in a sleek, entertaining and supremely gory film that should have a little more infamy. The R rating is gloriously wrung out as gallons of blood are thrown, flung and dripped all about the place and a real sense of supernatural, apocalyptic danger is attained with the story. Neill is an inspired choice to play a vamp too; Even when he's playing a gold hearted protagonist (remember how ominous he got with the raptor claw in Jurassic Park?), there's a semi dormant aura of menace that always dances in those Aussie eyes. Dafoe is at his best when his playing around in the genre theme park, and he's having a barroom blast here, getting to play the ultimate badass. There's a reverence for humanity here too, attention paid to a last ditch effort to save our race from a predatory one that is just trying to survive as well. Terrific stuff.