Verdict: Style over substance.
The vampire obsession continues with Daybreakers, a stylish Aussie horror in which humans and vampires are more concerned with survival than Twilight-esque romance.
Twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig directed Daybreakers from their own script and with a modest budget. And though it might resort to an over-the-top bloodfest as it ends, thanks to slick art direction and the addition of some big names to complement the local cast, the result is a smart, ambiitious, enjoyable if B-grade genre flick.
Daybreakers is set just nine years hence, but the world is a very dark and different place. A virus has turned people into vampires, and the few who have refused to "turn" are hunted for their blood. With the human race almost extinct, there is a desperate need to find a blood substitute that will sustain the vampires and prevent them turning into deformed, bat-like creatures called Subsiders.
Ethan Hawke is Edward Dalton, a haematologist employed by a large pharmaceutical company run by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill). Though it is his job to develop this blood substitute, Dalton is a tormented scientist, sympathetic to the humans and unsure that a substitute is the right solution.
When contacted by a covert group of humans (led by Claudia Karvan and Willem Dafoe), Dalton is amazed to discover there could be another way to end the vampires' nutritional issues, and save the world.
Awash in blue, black and grey tones it's a cold, impersonal world the Spierigs have created, and though it looks great, you get the feeling they didn't quite have the budget to hit this idea out of the park.
If you take away great performances from Hawke and Neill, and the originality of the idea, you're left with obvious characters and predictable action. It's not quite as thought-provoking as the Spierigs probably intended, but fun if you're after a bit of bloody mayhem.
- Francesca Rudkin
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill
Director: Michael and Peter Spierig
Running time: 98 mins
Rating: R16 (Violence, Offensive Language & Horror)
