The vampire mythology fascinates me. Zombies get a bad rap because their pallid skin is usually bruised and covered in sores; they lack coordination and an adequate vocabulary beyond the oft-repeated “braaaiiins,” meander wildly from side to side and often have entrails hanging from their incisors. They can’t really be blamed for this affliction — everyone goes a little mad sometimes. Werewolves suffer a similar stigma. Although they move gracefully and fluidly, any compassion locked within is overshadowed by drool-glistening fangs, a full-body coiffure of fur, and a pension for hunting chickens and baying at the moon.
Vampires on the other hand represent a marriage of villainy and beauty — not simply immortal and doomed to pine on the Earth forever, vampires perpetually wear the visage of beatific youth to transcend generations by assimilating into the privileged bourgeoisie. They maintain a nightlife that twenty-somethings revel in and forty-somethings use as nostalgic fodder. Moreover, their sole function is to seduce — not for love, but for survival: one that consists of consuming and relishing in the most poignant moments of each decade.
Imagine being thirty years old for the last century — privy to the development of the American economy, the birth of two world wars, two wars in Asia, the Civil Rights Movement, the liberation of India, and the destruction of the World Trade Center without ever being dismissed as too young or out-of-touch. Vampires are the voyeurs of civilization; yet, they are isolated and unable to foster an emotional connection that is not superseded by the need to survive.
This is where Twilight falls short of the mythology: it negates the inherent isolation and mingles the plight with clichéd romance. If Edward has learned to feed off animal blood, then the worry that he will drink Bella’s blood is less a plight and more a forced storyline. Plus, allowing Twilight’s undead to venture out in daylight negates the isolating darkness that vampires must seek; thus, what’s the danger aside from UV rays? Where is the plight? In other words, Twilight is more like the Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel Wood-biopic (he might bite her; she’s okay with it; CGI the werewolf).
Daybreakers deviates from this recent glut of vampire- media and mingles the vampire mythology with the social discourse of Darwinian evolution. Overall, the premise is astute and shows a wealth of promise. In addition, the first hour of the movie fosters an eeriness that emits isolation, using direct sound (a wine glass set down on marble counter tops, heavy feet climbing up stairs, flesh splattering against a window, or the sound of scalpel hitting a surgical tray) to score the film. Similarly, Daybreakers relies on cold blues and greens to accentuate the gray-hued palate. The experience is creepy and doesn’t set you up for cheep screams like House of Wax or Shutter.
In 2019, virtually everyone is a vampire, and the blood supply has nearly vanished — most animals have been consumed (except bats — turns out vampires aren’t cannibals; would you eat a monkey?), and the existent humans are either vigilantes being hunted by the vampire Army or being farmed like delicious baby cattle so that their blood can be harvested. Most impressively, the mass transformation from human to vampire is diplomatically conveyed — Charles Bromley (Sam Neil) views his transformation as a blessing that prevented him from dying of cancer; likewise, Frankie Dalton turns his brother Edward (Ethan Hawke) so that neither will ever have to watch the other perish. On the other hand, Edward resents his transformation because he is unable to disassociate himself from the humans that the vampires must farm and consume. Disturbed by this focus on hunting and harvesting humans, Edward becomes a hematologist whose goal is to develop a blood substitute.
While Daybreakers offers the benefit and plight of vampirism, it also solidly presents a moral conflict. Edward searches for a blood substitute to propagate a human/vampire coexistence, but the inherent problem in this coexistence is that the blood substitute becomes unnecessary if humans are available, which happen to be the prefered sources of vitamin B and iron for vampires. The introduction of Elvis Cormac (Willem Defoe), a former vampire whose humanness was restored through a freak accident, becomes the impetus for Edward’s quest for a cure.
However, this is where the film becomes a bit confused. The story is consistent throughout, but the last forty minutes of the film feels as if the writers/directors said, “Hey, let’s make sure there’s some carnage in this film.” I am far from being against carnage, but the silent, desolate imagery that charged the beginning of the film transition to melodramatic, slow-motion blood-letting — particularly the Trail-of-Tears-style scene where blood-starved, mutated vampires are yoked to one another and dragged out into the sunlight, burning and falling to piles of ash on the pavement. Could have been a powerful scene and parallel to the opening scene where a young female vampire holds a suicide note and waits patiently for the sun to crest the tops of distant trees; instead, it becomes a bit sappy.
In the end, the Spierig brothers (co-writers and directors) revisit the original mythology when the Eden of a mutual existence is rendered improbable given the need to consume in order to survive. Thus, as select vampires are turned back into humans, they become immediate buffets of juicy intestines and tender livers for the blood-deprived vampires. Perhaps the Thunderbird that escapes the carnage and drives toward the sun-drenched dessert that lies at the horizon portends a sequel; though, Daybreakers is a fine extension of the mythology that doesn’t require closure. (Unless the directors decide to do an Alien vs. Predator-style venture where the vampires from Daybreakers feast on the pasty, whiney, Twilight brood). Dear Santa,
DYL Mag Score: 7
