Movie Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers (2010) 

Directed by The Spierig Brothers 

Written by The Spierig Brothers 

Starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Isabel Lucas, Claudia Karvan

Release Date January 8th, 2010 

Published January 7th, 2010 

It's such a disappointment. The first 70 minutes or so of Daybreakers is a quite compelling Vampire thriller. The last 20 minutes, give or take a few, are such a massive wrong turn that they make me wretch at the thought. I was set to recommend Daybreakers but the ending is such a poor decision, such a disastrous wrong turn that Daybreakers becomes an early worst of the year candidate.

Ethan Hawke stars in Daybreakers as Vampire Hematologist Edward Dalton. Edward lives in a future, 2017, in which vampires are the majority and humans are hunted and farmed for blood. Unfortunately, the demand for blood is soon to exceed the supply. It is Edward's job, at the behest of his demanding boss (Sam Neill), too invent a viable blood substitute.

Elvis (Willem Dafoe) has a better idea, he has a cure. Through some remarkable accident Elvis has regained his humanity and he thinks that with Edward's help he can figure out exactly what cured him and begin to return the human race to dominance. Elvis and his partner Audrey (Claudia Karvan) kidnap Edward and he is more than willing to help. Unfortunately, he is being tracked by his brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) a member of the military human hunters.

As Edward seeks the cure and his brother and boss come together to plot against him there is an effective thriller with strong stakes and strong characters. Approaching the finale the film has great momentum all it needs is a satisfying end to cap the whole thing and make a pretty terrific genre thriller.

Sadly, all that co-directors Michael and Peter Spierig come up with is a gore-laden, special effects finale that undermines Daybreakers' thriller tension in favor of splatter movie ugliness. I don't mind gore, early on in Daybreakers a minor character explodes and the scene is quite effective. The ending unfortunately takes the gore too far, using it as a means to finish the movie as if they just couldn't think of anything else.

The bloody finale is a trapdoor, an easy escape for filmmakers without the imagination or talent to come up with something better. What a shame, there is a pretty solid thriller under all of the viscera in Daybreakers.