Daybreaker (2009) movie

I don't like horror movies - I find it unnecessary to torment myself with images of twisted faces, long snaking black hair, eyes without pupil and blood when I shut my eyes. I had no idea what Daybreaker was about before I was in the theatre with my friend who had suggested this movie.

I can't find a decent plot summary on the web to link to this time (the movie has just opened in Singapore) so I'll give a go at it based on my recollection of the movie. The movie starts with a little girl with golden eyes (vampire eyes) writing in a journal dated 2019 about how she can't go on as a vampire, how she's tired of not being able to grow old etc. And then she sits at the driveway, watching the sun slowly rise and then she gets incinerated with a bone-chilling scream. The movie then goes on, using news broadcasts and shots of ordinary citizens with vampire eyes, to inform the viewer that the world comprising 95% vampires is running short on blood supply from humans. Ethan Hawke plays a haemotologist vampire named Edward, who refuses to drink human blood is shown going to work at a high-tech lab where a briefing about how vampires who are deprived of human blood turn into monstrous bat-like creatures who go about attacking other vampires. His boss, Charles pressures Edward to find a blood substitute for the starving population quickly and to test out the prototype Edward currently has developed on a subject. The subject appears to be fine when all the blood substitute is injected into him but suddenly has a violent reaction (vomit, skin bubbling up etc) right after. When the medical team inject him with something else, he appears to go back to normal (the hideous bubbles subside) but then unexpectedly bursts apart, splattering everyone with vampire blood. So, Ethan is driving back that night in a distracted mood when he runs a van off the road accidentally. The van has 3 humans which Edward hides in his car from the vampire cops that come along to investigate the accident although 1 of them named Lisa shot him in the arm with a an arrow from a cross-bow. She also sees Edward's identification and apparently remembers it. When Edward gets home, he gets a surprise visit from his younger brother, Frankie who has signed up with the military. It is Edward's bday so Frankie brings a bottle of blood as a gift but Edward refuses to drink it. They quarrel and Frankie hurls the bottle against the wall. Then, an absolutely frightening and hideous mutated winged vampire bursts into the room and starts lapping up the human blood along with the glass shads. After being knocked around a bit, the vampire brothers manage to kill and behead the mutated vampire. There is much screaming and blood and gore in this scene in addition to close-up shots of the nightmarish face of the mutated vampire. Anyway, after the police leave, Lisa turns up unexpectedly and gives Edward an address to go to. Edward does just that, and meets Elvis, a vampire turned human again. Unfortunately, Frankie must have been trailing Edward because Frankie turns up and calls for the rest of the military. The trio get into Edward's car and escape (by crossing a broken-down bridge) to a hideout belonging to Lisa. There, Edward learns how Elvis became human again - an accident really. He also meets the people there, 1 of whom is in charge of bringing humans together. This guy leaves and meet up with a group of humans, one of whom is Charle's daughter (he tells a story of how she left him after he turned vampire). However, along the way back, they are ambushed and all die except for the senator's daughter. The military also use the walkie-talkie to trace the location of the human's hideout. The rest of the humans there decide to leave for another hideout but Edward is determined to stay because he wants to try to turn human using the vats for fermentation located the hideout. Lisa and Elvis stay with him and Edward manages to turn human on the third try. The soldiers who come to the hideout missed finding them as they were hiding in the large vat. Back to Charles, Edward's boss/ex-boss, he asks Frankie to turn his daughter into a vampire after the daughter stabs him for killing her friends and capturing her. Frankie does so by biting the daughter but the daughter refuses to drink human blood, thereby mutating. She speeds up the mutation process deliberately by biting her own wrists and drinking her vampire blood. Meanwhile, the rest of the world deteriorates too with the lack of human blood available and there is much violence around. It is decided then that all the mutated vampires would be rounded up, chained to a tank and dragged out to be burnt in the sunlight. Frankie watches the execution and Charles' daughter is one of these mutated vampires and she looks at him as she is lead out to be burnt and as she turns to ashes. Regret is seen in Frankie's face. Back to Edward, Elvis and Lisa who go to the other hideout to meet up with the rest of the other humans only to find them all dead. Edward suggests seeking the help of one of his best friends of 6 years at the lab. They wait for him at his house and he pretends to be genuinely interested in how Edward turned human. However, he betrays them and the military arrive to kill them. They get Lisa but Edward and Elvis run into the subways and lose the military. Frankie catches up with them at an abandoned house and also appears to be willing to take their side but suddenly leaps upon Elvis and bite him. Edward is then shown to go to his office and is taken to Charles who is draining Lisa's blood and drinking it. Charles tell Edward he isn't interested in any cure but that a blood substitute has been made in 2 days (by Edward's traitorous friend) and what matters to him is to do return business by selling the blood sub. Edward then taunts Charles into making him a vampire again and incites him to do so by referring to Charles being unable to turn his daughter himself. Charles bite Edward hard and...falling onto the ground, is shown to be human. This is what apparently has happened to Frankie after biting Elvis. Edward ties the now human Charles in a chair and set up in an elevator. The vampire guards are unable to resist their thirst for blood and fall upon Charles when the lift door opens. Edward and Lisa try to escape the building but their route is blocked. Frankie shows up in a car and buy them some breathing space. Surrounded by vampire guards, he hisses at them to run. They remain frozen until Lisa is grabbed by a vampire guard into another room and Edward runs after her. Frankie on the other hand, has been fallen upon by the vampire guards and lies on the ground all bloodied. The guards who bite him turn human and the guards who remain vampires fall upon them and tear them up. At the end of the mass eating orgy, only 3 guards remain as humans. Edward who has killed the vampire guard that grabbed Lisa exits from the room with her and he falls to his knees next to Frankie, his dead brother. There is some gun fire and his traitorous partner shows up with a machine gun that mows down the remaining 3 guards. He is about to shoot the pair when he explodes with a dart sticking out of his chest. Elvis apparently is in time to save the day. All 3 make off in the car that Frankie drove into the building.

The Slog Reviews: 7/10. Lots of frighteningly awfully bloody and grosteque scenes. Unpredictable ending - I thought it would be happily ever each turn, when a cure was discovered to turn vampires back to humans, when frankie turned human, when charles turned human, but it was not to be. All in all, an entertaining enough movie for those with a healthy appreciation of violence and gore.