By: debbie lynn elias
As day breaks on a new year, it seems only fitting that a new day dawns in the world of vampires with DAYBREAKERS. Call me crazy, but I have serious issues with vampires that sparkle, opting instead to relish the dark dank polish of evil incarnate (Angel and Spike – our favorite vampires with a soul – aside). Thankfully, the Spierig brothers are on the scene. Making their mark several years ago with “Undead”, a little zombie gem from Down Under, while not the finest lo budget-no budget work around, the brothers nevertheless showed true potential in a burgeoning genre with their hallmark being creativity. And fortunately for moviegoers the world over, the potential they showed with “Undead” comes to fruition with DAYBREAKERS with a very very new and unexpected twist on vampires with an often satiric, but always entertaining and fascinating conceptualization. The Spierig Brothers not only make you think, but make you jump in your own skin.
The time is 2019. 95% of the world population are vampires. (For those of you a bit mathematically challenged, that means humans compromise only 5% of the beings on Earth.) The world as we know it has flip-flopped as work, play, school and “life” now occur at night while slumber fills homes encased with steel windows during the day. Vampires rule the world. They run corporations. Teach our children. Fuel the economy. Technology has invented very cool gadgetry to accommodate the needs of the vamps, like cars with video mirrors. But there is a problem. This steely grey dark existence has hit a brick wall. Food – much like energy or in some regions, water, for us today – has become a problem. Seems that vampires still feed on human blood. But with only 5% of the population being human, survival begins to look bleak. Thankfully, we have Charles Bromley and Bromley Corporation.
The Gordon Gecko of the corporate vampire world, Bromley has cornered the market on human harvesting. That’s right. They harvest humans for their blood and then sell the blood world over to individuals and companies alike. Want a little blood in that coffee? 3% ? 5%? AB? O+? You name it, they sell it. Unfortunately, their harvest is running low, resulting in vampire starvation with blood going only to those who can afford it, making for some rather ugly genetic mutations and the uprising of Subsiders (disgustingly gruesome creatures that were once human, turned vamp and now morphed into grotesqueness due to lack of blood). That, however, will also come to end when the human supply is exhausted. Calling on his top hematologist, Edward Dalton, Bromley spares no expense in putting Edward to work to develop either a synthetic blood or find a miracle to create more human blood in order to save both species.
A “man” with morality and a conscience, Edward is both a dichotomy and paradigm. Craving blood, yet refusing to drink it, he exists on animal blood, a poor nutrient substitute. But Edward’s morality and work is known beyond the walls of Bromley and be it through happenstance or calculated risk, Edward is drawn into the human resistence efforts by a woman named Audrey, an unlikely hero named Elvis and a “cure” for what ails the entire world.
Written by the Michel and Peter Spierig with him specifically in mind, Ethan Hawke is amazing. Tacitly brilliant as the morally conflicted Edward Dalton, Hawke has an internal intensity giving us a hero with intelligence using education and academia to prevail against evil and greed. Watching Hawke’s deliberateness and facial expression is captivating. Interestingly, he initially passed on the role. “I had been sent the script and the script came with a DVD of ‘Undead’. I didn’t read the script and I popped in the ‘Undead” and watched about 10 minutes of it and thought, ‘That really sucks’. Then my brothers were in town and they started watching it in the middle of the night and they just started howling with laughter. I came downstairs and watched the whole movie with them and I got it. I had kind of forgotten the sense of humor this genre and what’s possible inside a genre. So, then I read the script. And when I read the script you realize that this is the best of what this genre has to offer…It has real originality. And I think the best genre movies have a metaphor or analogy of work in the subtext of them. And this idea of people destroying all their resources and not caring until they were all gone, is really powerful. It kind of fuels the way the sci-fi element works.” And work it does.
Also important to Hawke in electing to do this role was the appeal of making a good genre movie. “As somebody who has never done this kind of movie, that was part of the appeal. I thought it would be really fun if we could do it well. The challenge of this movie is invariably you don’t have enough money to make the movie of these guys’ dreams. You have to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks. Where you cut and what you don’t cut. One of the things that separates a good genre movie from bad genre movie, is when you care about the people. The dime a dozen ones are where you don’t have any awareness of the character. Here, there’s something appealing about the people.”
In what has to be some of the most inspired casting ever, Willem Dafoe enters the fray as resistence leader Elvis, a man who is “cured” of being a vampire. Kick ass brilliant as the cocky survivor, Dafoe brings a level of self-deprecating humor and heroic adventure to the mix. Ironically, Dafoe previously received both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for playing a vampire in “Shadow of a Vampire” which when I first heard of his casting in this film, had me believing he would be playing the evil tycoon Charles Bromley. One would think that Dafoe would be the bloodsucking vampire and corporate head and Sam Neill the humanist fighting to save mankind, but in the world of the Spierig Brothers, that’s not the case. This casting flip flop, however, only served to add to the uniqueness of the story. Neill, who has never played a vampire before, jumped at the chance to go against type. Playing Bromley as quiet, stealthily controlling, he exudes elements of subterfuge and mystery beneath a glossy slick veneer.
Written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, the brothers know how to capture an audience. Within the first ten minutes, they silently draw blood, reeling you into this futuristic world of greed, destruction and annihilation. Punctuating silence with explosive action sequences and terrifying visions, the metaphoric story of morality, salvation, ethics, conscience and the ever present subliminal message that money IS the root of all evil, be it in human or vampire form, is an eloquent balance to the visual.
Lensed by Director of Photography Ben Nott using a digital Genesis system, the sterility and purity he creates is fantastic. Close-ups of Hawke and Neill etch indelible pictures in the mind. The denatured color pallette of the world is icy, cold, empty. Paralleled is the golden patina of a sun-filed field and the vineyard, celebrating humanity and the dawn or birth of new life. Extremely well choreographed from a design standpoint.
George Liddle’s production design reeks of film noir, in fact, very Nazi Germany. Take a look at one of Neill’s suit jackets. The velvet collar and lapel set against the grey of the fabric; very German upper echelon a la WWI. Bodes well with Neill’s character being Hitleresque in his cleansing beliefs, albeit he wants the world cleansed of humans but for the need for blood. Even the techy look of the city harkens to films of the 40’s with a futuristic setting. Everything about this film works. Everything is symbiotic. The attention to even the smallest details, like coffee with that blood, speaks to the dedication of not only the Spierigs but their cast and crew.
And let’s talk about the creature creation, special effects and FX make-up. Thanks to FX Project Designer Steve Boyle and Prosthetics Coordinator Samantha Lyttle, 250 sets of fangs and 250 sets of contact lenses help bring life to the vampire world while the Subsider creations are masterful, harkening to the world of Joss Whedon (particularly the creatures of his final “Buffy” episode), lending familiar touchstones to what we have already seen on screen as evil incarnate. Extremely cool.
Not to be outdone, pyrothechnics abound as vampires explode when staked. Beyond impressive for a film of this nature – and totally unexpected given that Timur Bekmambetov (the genius behind “Daywatch” and “Nightwatch”) isn’t at the helm.
Described by Hawke as having “that kind of irrepressible curiosity and love of movies that I think is required if you are going to make a good film”, the Spierigs don’t disappoint. Slick. Stylish. Creative. Original. Beyond cool. A new day has dawned in the genre with DAYBREAKERS.
Edward Dalton – Ethan Hawke
Elvis – Willem Dafoe
Charles Bromley – Sam Neill
Written and directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig.
