Daybreakers.

In case you were wondering, which you weren’t, we are still alive and our severe lack of posts can be attributed to the inevitable lethargy of the holidays. However, the break being over and the number of films out there only increasing exponentially, I triumphantly declare our idle status over. Daybreakers was first on the menu of new releases. The futuristic high-concept vampire thriller seemed, from the trailers, to be an intriguing and perhaps disguised neo-noir proverb. Unfortunately, the film rather quickly degrades into an unoriginal splatter-fest with shallow characters and only the occasional rewarding moment.

To great benefit, the reason behind most of earth’s population becoming vampires is not given. We are immediately propelled into a vampire-controlled society where blood is served with coffee and windows are blacked-out for daytime driving. The concept of this foreign yet recognizable world is rather fascinating and is available for further exploration. The film, on the other hand, delivers are few novel ideas about how society would function in darkness but spends more time with gory explosions and decapitations. The threat of starvation imminent for the vampire race forces their time and energy into farming the last of the humans and devoting efforts to a blood substitute. To no great surprise for any human viewer, greed and corruption of strong motivating forces for the powers at work. It seems that even if our species become vampires the individualistic and profiteering mindsets will aid our downfall. For many, a substitute is not the answer, only real blood will do. (This appears almost direct antithesis to our society where the questionable ingredients of fast food are the most mass satiating.)

Is Daybreakers worth seeing? Whatever. The concept is quite interesting but it falters in ultimate execution. We could explore the success and failure of its cinematic techniques, the occasional mistimed edit or wonderful framing, or we could interpret cold, dark, sterile futuristic mise-en-scene. But for a film the film caters more to the shock and awe, it hardly seems worth it. I’ll admit much disappointment here.