It seems like vampires have penetrated our culture, they live in our cinemas, our libraries and even our schools. as of lately the vampire has reached a new level of popularity, in the past few months, vampires have hosted Saturday Night Live, appeared on the MTV music video awards, and are now a rather common graphic on teen girl’s clothing. With vampires everywhere, it feels like they have taken over.
A world run by vampires is a rather scary thought, and is also the premise behind Lion’s Gate’s new film Daybreakers, in theatres now. The Spierig Brothers take the plot beyond a simple take over, as it turns out, humans are nearly extinct. which means that the vampires are running low on food, and in this addition to vampire lore, starving vampires transform from civilized blue blooded, Anne Rice caricatures into skinny, Nosferato-esque, half-bat, half-zombie, blood drinkers with an IQ equal to their beauty.
The storyline, which clearly draws on Anne Rice from the very beginning, follows a vampire scientist searching for a safe blood alternative. He doesn’t have a lot of time either, the blood supply will only sustain the population until the end of the month.
For the next two hours follow this adventure as a cure to vampirism is found, rather than a substitute for human blood.
The film is a vampire action flick, with a fair amount of blood and gore. The vampires of this film seem to possess technology far more advanced than anything we have today. However, some things never change the meaning of the vampire, for example, which has always been used as a tool for social commentary.
Abraham Stocker’s 1897 novel Dracula, is an observation on the prudish sexual morals of the day, and in the same way, Daybreakers comments on our own morality. One scene where vampire leaders are debating about the solution for the blood crisis, is reminiscent of our, all too human politicians speaking on the energy crisis. Daybreakers seems to present blood as a metaphor for oil.
The film is somewhat predictable, and in places a little dry, there are a few scenes to make you jump, but calling Daybreakers a horror film would be an exaggeration. Overall, this film is neither a good film, nor is it a bad film. It is somewhat entertaining; and that is, after all, what films are supposed to do.
