Guest Review – Daybreakers (2009)

Today let’s welcome my buddy Eamon Minges for something very different from his usual fare: this site’s first-ever guest movie review! Read about the sci-fi/horror cult classic Daybreakers below…

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I want to start by thanking my lifelong friend, Nic Quattromani, for allowing me to make this guest post on his blog. Nic has been very gracious in giving me free rein to guest post about almost anything I would like, and for that, I want to extend my gratitude.

Many of the readers here may remember Nic’s review of one of the most famous vampire films, the 1922 Nosferatu. As a complementary post, I wanted to write a review of my personal favorite vampire film of all time, the 2009 title Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe.

Daybreakers was written and directed by identical twin brothers Peter and Michael Spierig. During the production process, they reached out to actor Ethan Hawke, who, as a fan of the horror genre, frequently stars in lower-budget horror films made by lesser-known directors, despite being a Hollywood A-lister. Upon reading the script, Hawke was sold, and subsequently used his connections to help secure financing for the film as well as to bring on other Hollywood big names such as Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe.

The film’s premise, the detail and thoughtfulness of its worldbuilding, and its skillful weaving of science fiction, fantasy, and horror elements are what originally caused me to fall in love with it. Daybreakers takes place in an alternate 2019. Ten years prior to the opening of the film, a young girl, referred to as “Patient Zero,” was bitten by a bat infected with a virus that, when introduced to the human body, causes symptoms consistent with vampirism.

Once a person is infected, physiological differences begin to manifest. A person’s irises will turn from their original color to a golden yellow, they will develop longer incisor teeth, giving them signature fangs, and most importantly, at the cost of sunlight exposure becoming deadly to them (causing their skin to burn and burst into flames), they stop aging and are no longer vulnerable to disease. One quirk of this viral infection is that it stops the aging process of the infected person at the age when they were first infected. Patient Zero, realizing that she would never mature into an adult woman, decided to take her life for that very reason.

In this alternate world, however, many people recognized the inherent benefits of becoming vampires and decided to “turn” for the immortality and disease resistance effects of vampirism. By the film’s opening in 2019, over 95% of people have become vampires, resulting in just five percent of the world population remaining human. Upon becoming vampires, people begin to develop insatiable cravings for blood, and this is the premise in which the film’s opening sequence begins.

We are introduced to this new world of vampires through a beautiful commute sequence of Ethan Hawke’s character, Edward Dalton. We see him commuting to work in the subterranean networks of streets and subways that the new vampirized U.S. society has created to hide the public from the risk of sun exposure. We are shown through vivid imagery how wider society has handled the transition to vampirism. People still work 9-5 but on the opposite side of the clock. To avoid the sun, society is now nocturnal, with people sleeping through the day and going about their work, business, and pleasure at night.

At the end of the opening sequence, we see where Edward Dalton works. Dalton is a hematologist (blood specialist) at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the vampirized U.S. called Bromley Marks. The Bromley Marks Company was founded and is currently owned by Charles Bromley (played by Sam Neill). Bromley’s company is the largest producer of human blood for the consumption of the general public. Dalton is working for Bromley Marks to find a blood substitute. The dark side of Bromley’s company is the means by which they extract blood. Bromley uses captured humans placed in a coma-like state to be bled and harvested for their blood. The process of blood extraction is hard on the humans that are interned, and because of this, there is a constant need for new humans to be captured and bled.

Unfortunately for Bromley Marks and wider vampire-kind, only about five percent of the human population remains, and because of this, the supply of blood available to the public is beginning to dwindle. Something rather unsettling happens to vampires who are deprived of blood, and I do not intend to spoil it, but it gives this film solid inclusion in the horror genre. In the desperate search for a blood substitute, an auto mechanic (played by Willem Dafoe) may hold the key to ending the blood supply crisis.

Overall, Daybreakers is a great watch. The pacing of the film feels even, albeit a bit drawn-out in places, and the characters are sufficiently developed and have believable motivations given the context in which the story takes place. Daybreakers balances the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres in such a way as to make the world in which it takes place semi-plausible, albeit with a bit of suspension of disbelief. Something that surprised me about the film upon watching it was the inclusion of some riveting and well-executed action sequences that feel like they are beyond the 20-million-dollar budget that the Spierig brothers had to work with. Some of the action felt similar to John Wick in the way it was filmed, edited, and executed, which was an unexpected treat to behold.

Daybreakers is an enjoyable and well-made film, but is not without its pitfalls. Certain sequences in the movie felt somewhat drawn out, while others felt a bit too condensed, especially near the end. I left my viewing thinking that the film could have been condensed in certain places and drawn out in others to make the pacing more even. Beyond the pacing, the character development is sufficient but not invested in the level that it could have been. Some of the characters (especially the ones in the periphery) seem a little one-dimensional, although the development of the three central characters is good enough to make you feel invested. One other thing that I have to nitpick about this movie is its rather drab lighting and color palette. The colors feel desaturated, and the palette feels dull and grayed to the point where it noticeably bothered me and made the film less visually appealing.

There is an underrated element to Daybreakers that I wanted to mention. The film has a surprising amount of social commentary woven into its narrative. The way Bromley Marks bleeds captured humans is eerily similar to some of the horrors we know about in factory farming. Without spoiling anything, there are plot details that seem to critique capitalism and consumerism in a way that I was not expecting and felt like a pleasant surprise to be sprinkled into a sci-fi fantasy film about a society of vampires. The way that humans are oppressed and hunted felt very similar to the apartheid systems that we have seen in many different forms in our world. Another interesting detail was the critique of the lack of separation between corporate and state forces, as seen in the relationship between the vampire state and the Bromley Marks corporation. Overall, the social commentary aspect of the film is a welcome detail that adds more depth to the movie and makes it feel richer as a whole. It’s subtle yet a nice addition that makes the world feel more plausible and “lived-in.” 

While this movie does have its nitpicks, I think they are outweighed by the positives that the film has to bring to the table. Daybreakers is a good Saturday-night movie night watch, and I would highly recommend it for someone who might want to have a Halloween movie night with friends or even a solo movie night experience. In the tradition of movie reviews on this blog, my score is a solid seven-point-five out of ten. While Daybreakers isn’t perfect, it is a solid, enjoyable film that is well worth the time to watch it, maybe even twice.

Have you seen Daybreakers? If so, what did you think? Comment below and let us know!