DayBreakers Movie Recap and Review

This recap has spoilers, you are warned!

Over the weekend I saw the new vampire thriller Daybreakers with Ethan Hawke. A decade or so in the future, a plague has transformed much of the world’s population into vampires. Humans, if spotted, are rounded up and farmed for blood. The world though is experiencing a blood shortage as the farmed humans do not live long after being captured and there aren’t many left. Feeding on vampire blood causes bizarre mutations that cause you to lose all rational thought and the body itself mutates into something resembling a huge white bat. The sewers are overrun with these creatures and home invasions are becoming commonplace. When all the blood runs out everyone will share that horrible fate.

Hawke plays Edward Dalton a vampire hematologist that is trying to come up with a blood substitute to save the species. He also naively hopes that humans would be permitted to repopulate and join society again but the corporation he works for intends for them to become a rare delicacy for the rich instead. In a twist of fate he gets in a car accident one night and the passengers of the other vehicle (which is totaled) turn out to be human. As the police approach Edward allows them to get in his car and hide while he indicates to the police that they got out and ran.

Later on they find them in his home, believing that they can trust him. They give him instructions for a meet the next day but he doesn’t realize that his brother, who is a military man charged with hunting humans, overheard the exchange. The next day Edward meets Elvis (William Dafoe) who was a vampire for years before an accident unexpectedly cured him and turned him back into a human. Elvis was exposed to sunlight for a very short time before falling into a river that put out the fire. When he emerged from the water he was human.

Edward goes on the run with Elvis and Audrey ( the lady from the car accident) as his brother shows up with the army. They escape and Edward decides to see if he can re-create the “cure”, using sunlight and a pressurized wine tank to extinguish the resulting flames. It works and Edward once again become human.

In a clever twist Edward finds it will be easier than originally thought to spread his “cure” even if the vampires don’t want to give up immortality. This revelation will ensure that humans will once again get to repopulate on earth.

I thought this movie was excellent albeit very bloody. The story was clever and something I have never seen before and since I am a big vampire genre fan that is no easy feat. I would recommend this to paranormal/scifi fans and vampire fans alike.

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