Daybreakers (2009)

In the year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save humankind.

Directors:

Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig

Writers:

Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig

Stars:

Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill

4 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ethan Hawke	...	Edward Dalton
Willem Dafoe	...	Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac
Sam Neill	...	Charles Bromley
Claudia Karvan	...	Audrey Bennett
Michael Dorman	...	Frankie Dalton
Isabel Lucas	...	Alison Bromley
Vince Colosimo	...	Christopher Caruso
Callum McLean	...	Vampire School Kid
Harriet Minto-Day	...	Lisa Barrett
Jarrad Pon	...	Vampire School Kid
Sahaj Dumpleton	...	Homeless Vampire
Victoria Williams	...	Vampire School Kid
Jay Laga'aia	...	Senator Turner
Zoe White	...	Vampire School Kid
Gabriella Di Labio	...	Businesswoman

Storyline

In a world 10 years into the future, vampires make up the vast majority of the population with only 5% of the human race remaining. This presents particular challenges as the vampires' food supply - human blood - is dwindling and rationing is now the norm. There is growing evidence that vampires deprived of an adequate blood supply are themselves evolving into wild, vile creatures that attack anyone and anything in order to survive. Dr. Edward Dalton, a vampire and hematologist who works for a pharmaceutical firm, has been working on finding an artificial blood supply that will meet the vampire society's needs. He is sympathetic to humans and sees his work as a way of alleviating their suffering but his views on finding a solution change considerably when he meets someone who found a way to transform himself from being a vampire to again take human form.

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Plot Keywords:

vampire | blood | vampire society | plague | rationing | 

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Taglines:

In 2019, the most precious natural resource... is us.

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [fr]

Country:

Australia USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 January 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

La hermandad

Filming Locations:

Australia

Box Office

Budget:

$20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,344,588 (UK) (8 January 2010)

Gross:

£4,185,646 (UK) (5 February 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate, Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC), Pictures in Paradise

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

DTS SDDS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This movie was released in the USA on January 8th 2010, birthday of Elvis Presley. The character played by Willem Dafoe is named Elvis because of his love for the Presley song 'Burning Love'.

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Goofs

When Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe run through the Subwalk, the word 'Adelaide' can be seen on a placard, indicating a filming location in Brisbane's Central Station near Adelaide Street, one of the major streets in the Brisbane CBD. However, numerous US and Canadian cities also have an 'Adelaide' street, most famously Toronto, Canada.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[on television]
Senator Westlake: Let's be clear about this. Humans were offered a chance to assimilate, but they refused. Therefore, they are enemies of the state and will be captured and farmed for blood supply.

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Crazy Credits

In line with the subject of the movie, the lettering of the end credits is in red, instead of the customary white.

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Connections

Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Robin Hood/Letters to Juliet/Just Wright (2010)

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Soundtracks

"Burning Love"
Words & Music by Dennis Linde
Published by Sony / ATV

User Reviews

This movie, in a lot of ways, is like GATTACA with vampires. It's very sci-fi.

Building on the genre-clash crossover theme that was solidly established the first night of TIFF's Midnight Madness with the slasher flick cum teen girl comedy Jennifer's Body, programmer Colin Geddes has delivered another interesting hybrid: the futuristic, sci-fi-vampire film Daybreakers.

Set 10 years into the future and after the bat-spawned vampire plague converted the vast majority of humans into blood-sucking chain-smoking nocturnal regular joes who have to shave by watching themselves in a video feed, Daybreakers is directed by the twin Spierig brothers. They're MM vets, these dudes, as their last film (2003's Undead) famously closed out the beloved Uptown theatre here in Toronto, the still-mourned theatre that was home to the midnight TIFF screenings before they moved to the cavernous, impersonal and enormous Ryerson hall.

Ethan Hawke plays vampire Edward, the reticent, kind-hearted Chief Hematologist of the giant multi-national corporation tasked with farming the remaining few humans for their blood and developing a substitute to feed the billions of vampires teetering on the edge of starvation as resources dwindle. The film is a neat enough allegory any number of take-your-pick conservation issues, food, water, oil; one of the things that makes the film work is that it's sci-fi of the best kind, true speculative fiction that talks about what's happening now, or could happen soon, through a lens that both abstracts it slightly and makes it easier (if at times much too much and too obvious) to see. The Spierig bros' film is entertaining from the start, it takes an immediate heart-warming leap into territory any genre film-lover will like. The film says "ok, this is a vampire movie, it's in the future, the humans lost, the vampires have their own society now" and instead of just telling that story, the story of the battle, Daybreakers takes that as pat and asks "ok, now that you've accepted that in the prologue, what happens to vampire society when it runs out of blood?".

It's joyous just in its premise, so reminiscent and redolent of true movie-monster-nerd basement fantasy conversations about who would win between Dracula and Predator or what would happen if the Nazis had werewolf soldiers that any number of technical shortcomings, like a jumbled, poorly paced and overlong second act or a handful of not-very-good performances can be overlooked easily and gladly. While much of the film feels (and not just due to the presence of Ethan Hawke, who oddly spends the last half an hour of the film looking exactly like Han Solo) like vampire Gattaca as the machinations of the rebel - underground - vs - evil - corporate - overlords - and - there's

• also - a - family - betrayal - subplot revolve, there are a handful

of truly scary, truly sublime scenes of the best kind of vampire carnage, gory and stylish and terrifying. For lovers like me of genre freakouts, Daybreakers offers a flawed but thoroughly enjoyable, happy-making trip, one foot firmly in vampire flick tradition and the other in entertaining, creative and original speculative territory. I was sold the moment I didn't see Ethan Hawke's reflection in the rear view mirror of a sleek, futured-up Chevy cruising through the best Blade Runner future two Australian indie filmmaker brothers could create. 8.1/10.

We have a video version on our site, http://www.thesubstream.com .