Daybreakers is the latest movie to hop onto the vampire bandwagon. Unlike the countless other vampire flicks coming out these days, Daybreakers offers up a unique twist that not only sets it apart from other films in the genre, but provides the driving force that moves the film’s story along. Daybreakers distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack by successfully taking a familiar idea in a bold new direction. Daybreakers is not a perfect film by any means, but it is a welcome breath of fresh air in an already overly saturated genre.

In 2019, a plague has caused the majority of the world’s population to become vampires. The few remaining humans are forced into hiding for fear of being hunted down and farmed for their blood. Overpopulation combined with a shortage of humans, has resulted in a rapidly diminishing food supply which is predicted to run out in a month.
The vampire leaders are desperate to find a solution to this problem before human extinction eventually leads to the end of vampires also. This twist is an interesting deviation from the standard “humans vs. vampires” in that it acknowledges the dependency between the two and focuses a majority of the films attention on this fact.

The acting in the film is pretty good overall. Ethan Hawke gives an excellent portrayal of Edward Dalton, the vampire scientist struggling to find a solution to the food supply crisis. Despite him being a cold vampire, he manages to convey a great deal of emotion while still coming off convincingly as a vamp. Willem Dafoe is his usual eccentric self as the leader of the last remaining humans who has an interesting secret. Perhaps the best part of the cast is the amazing Sam Neill. He portrays Charles Bromley, head of a billion dollar corporation whose purpose is to harvest humans for their blood. Some of the coolest villains are those who can remain calm and even polite while in the middle of committing some truly atrocious acts. Neill has this down pat as his character can transform from gentleman to vicious killer in the blink of an eye.

While the premise and the overall story hold up fairly well throughout the film, it seems to lose a bit of steam in the final act. I don’t know whetehr it was the ‘solution” that they discover or whether the premise wasn’t quite strong enough to drive the entire movie for me, but the momentum that was built up started to lose some of its energy by the end. Daybreakers is still a pretty good movie. It presents a fairly new twist on an old idea and the film is entertaining throughout. I wouldn’t expect anything ground breaking when wtching this film, but it is interesting enough to keep you guessing and wanting to know what happens next.