The vampire genre has recently gone through a huge revival, unfortunately mainly for teenagers and through generic dilutions such as the “Twilight” saga, “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” TV-series. Long gone are the days when vampires were respectfully feared and admired, now its time for glittery emo-tween vampires who leave crescent-shaped bite-marks on your neck! Well, basically everything but to wash your dishes and tuck you in your pink fuzzy blanket!lol Yes, its a sad age for vampires and their sun is about to set (or better said dawn?) and I for one pity their fate. Last year the Swedes had a very intelligent and beautiful take on the genre through “Let The Right One In“. A movie which though led by child actors targeted the adult viewers, unlike its upcoming American remake which will most likely target the same lucrative market that Twilight has. Somewhere in despair there was a hope set on “Daybreakers”, which promised to be a hardcore vampire movie and as such had the opportunity to right the wrongs by its unique concept of reversing the perspective on the social pathology of vampires. Although the first 1/3 of the movie was doing exactly that, the latter half lost its solidity due to a combination of weak script, - acting and - CGI!
The initially growing dramaturgy took a blow and went down in the end by the twist of the plot basically being spoiled through a case of poor editing! So clumsily executed that it hurts even without a vampire biting you! Aussies have been involved in the movie and not surprisingly the cast is flooded with some more and some less credible actors from down under. As much as I liked Claudia Karvan in the Aussie TV-series “The Secret Life of Us” she is completely miscast in this role of the female protagonist. Coming across pale and uncharismatic, and it had nothing to do with anemia (got it? vampire genre … blood … lack of it … eh, never mind!lol) Not to mention Willem Dafoe, God bless his talent, proving once again his tendency to make one too many questionable decisions in his career!
