
5/5 Gory Stars
Everything that Willem Defoe’s bony hands touch, turns to gold.
On Friday night, John, Dan and I ventured out into the cold, smell of snow in the air – and drove to Somerdale, NJ – the last theater playing Daybreakers in a 50 mile radius. We ate at a nearby On the Border where I imbibed too much Tequila, and then were off to the theater with the snow flurries steadily falling. The only people inside our theater were, well, us. So lots of snickering and comments without holding back occurred.
The long and short of it is this: Daybreakers takes place in the year 2019. Vampirism is the way of the world after a plague ravages the population, and brings the human species to the brink of extinction. Scientists search for an artificial alternative to blood while vampires in the streets at best live on rationed blood, and at worse, devolve into raging mutants with a slice of bat on the side. When a band of humans with strange evidence of a cure meet Emo-Vamp-Hematologist Edward Dalton(Ethan Hawke) the race is on to turn back the evolutionary clock before mankind is wiped off the map.
The cast is cool – the special effects were solid – the whole thing had a great, edgely… noir feel to it that any vampire buff will likely appreciate. It took something that in recent years has been overdone (…sigh…Twilight) and made it new again. With a total open door for a sequel (which will likely never reach production, just like the 30 Days of Night sequel I’ve now accepted will never come into being…) Daybreakers had laughs, shock moments, gore, and didn’t always take itself too seriously… and apparently its quirky resolution on how to spread a cure even elluded 1/3 of its viewing audience (Sorry Dan… really? You didn’t see that coming?) which means, maybe other people missed it too and got a wonderful surprise!
When we emerged from the theater, there were several inches of snow, and a hilarious drive to Germantown to look forward to, where we spent the weekend snowed in with friends. (And I, lacking my seemingly necessary dose of caffeine combined with alcohol…in addition to tequila… seem to have exhausted my memory around 3something… though I was up till…4something?) Oh, and I fell into a tub while entering the bathroom. Just in case anyone else hadn’t heard…
So – I definitely want to track down the Spierig Brothers’ other films to check out. Particularly their zombie flick Undead. I really hope they continue to work their way into the mainstream without losing their creative integrity. In the meantime… Daybreakers 2 is a nice daydream.














