Daybreakers

Posted May 24, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

2019. We’re a decade after a mysterious plague arrived and turned almost all of mankind into vampires. Humanity is on the brink of extinction and those left are being hunted down to be hooked up in a laboratory to get harvested from their blood. With human blood getting scarse, the lower classes of vampires are turning into beings called “subsiders” who are a menace to the streets. The vamps realise that this can’t go on forever and are looking for a blood substitute so they won’t all deteriorate into mindless bloodsucking creatures.

One of the researchers trying to find this substitute is hematologist Edward Dalton who actually has a conscience and hopes that a substitute will result in humans no longer being hunted. One night he saves a couple of humans on the run from the vamp police and as a result they decide to let him meet Elvis, a human who may very well hold the key to something better than a substitute for human blood: a cure against vampirism.

Sound and Vision:
We get a solid presentation of Daybreakers with except for some fluctuations of digital noise having no technical issues that aren’t to blame on the CGI (some blurring in the background during car chases). Fine details also are lacking here and there but overall we have nothing to really complain about.

We get a great dynamic and active soundtrack that makes full use of all channels without having problems with details. Great stuff!

Extras:
– The Big Picture (short film)
– Making of ‘Daybreakers’

Not all the extras one can find on the US version but we do get the most important ones. A good choice by Dutch Filmworks as we prefer quality extras over unnecessary fillers.

Conclusion:
Daybreakers is the third movie by the Spierig Brothers and when taking into account that number one was a short film and number two a B-movie zombie fest we can say that they’ve made tremendous progress to already make something like Daybreakers. The setup is quite original with badass vampires having taken over the world and humanity being on the verge of extinction. In a time where vamps are being portrayed as overly depressive creatures that have something with depressed teens and werewolves (Twilight anyone?) it’s about time we got them to show their fangs again and that’s exactly what we get here.

Three main vamps lead the crowd: Sam Neill as the perfectly cast farmaceutical bigshot with fangs, Willem Dafoe who provides the necessary one-liners and Ethan Hawke, the vamp who doesn’t want to be a vamp. The characters may be a bit superficial and comic-like but it just works like a charm! And then we haven’t even talked about the Matrix-like atmosphere and the action that just splashes from the screen at times.

Daybreakers won’t make it into the ranks of all-time cult classics, but it sure gets close!

Dutch Filmworks delivers this movie with good image and excellent sound quality and we also get two nice extras that will keep you clustered to the screen for over two more hours. This is how we like our Blu-ray releases! Get it!

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