Plot: Edward Dalton, played by Ethan Hawke, a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world's population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out.
My Review: First of all, i'd like to point out that January movie releases usually suck and end up being a part of the worst movies of the year discussion. With that said, Daybreakers isn't your typical January movie release.
They're were no major stars in this movie, no disrespect to Ethan Hawke or Willem Dafoe who are both great veteran actors in the business. They had very good chemistry with each other on screen, making conversations and interactions between them very natural.
As for the movie itself, it was definitely one of the goriest films i've ever seen. People who are squirmish at the sight of blood and limbs should skip this movie. The level of gore in this movie can sometimes be unexpected and disturbing but does not hinder the overall movie. Even more, the gore could be seen as a bonus to a film with a mostly fresh story.
The vampires vs humans movie concept has been done before and it has also been done from both sides of the story. Daybreakers adds a new element to this small genre with the idea of, what happens when vampires, who have completely taken over the world, have nothing to feed on? After a while it becomes survival of the fittest, which is something usually humans would deal with, not so much vampires.
To that extent, the story makes sense. As the story develops into finding a cure or a substitute to keep the vampire race alive, the story becomes confusing and at times illogical. Some people did leave the theater with a confused look on their face, questioning exactly how the cure or the substitute actually works. I won't mention what they are, I'd like to keep things spoiler free. I know this movie is set 9 or 10 years into the future but even 10 years from now, some of the things in the movie still seem illogical.
One last point i'd like to touch on is the random scares, not just in Daybreakers but in general horror movies. Without the random scares, the movie would have been horrifying due to the increasingly disturbing amount of gore. They're were 5 random scares that I counted of which the movie could have done without 3 or 4 of them. Granted, it is a horror movie and the ultimate goal of a horror movie is to scare someone. I just think they're are better ways to do it.
Overall, Daybreakers was one of the better January releases of the last few years. Most horror movies do not come out in January, so kudos to the directors, Michael and Peter Spierig, for taking a risk on a January release date. Daybreakers could have been one of the better horror releases of the last few years but lack of logic in some parts of the plot made it hard to put it in that category.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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