Why I like Daybreakers

This one is a relatively new post that draws on my last post regarding Blade III

Daybreakers, the vampire movie of 2009, is one of my favorite movies and I've been itching to put it into words for some time.

If I could sum it up in a few words, it is a phrase I've used in the past: the monstrous in everyday life.

Much of my personal work explores this theme, but this movie shows the everyday actions of creatures that would be considered monsters for good reason.

Humanity has fallen to the Vampires.  However, despite their severe blood needs and sun addiction, they have, more or less settled down and have become the dominant life on earth.

Yet in spite of this, Vampires have a shade of humanity that shows more then they most likely would have cared about.

This woman is a specific example of this.






 

In any other world, this vampire, dubbed the blood lady, would be a minion of the vampire lord or prince.  Instead she is a working stiff that is just doing her job, not unlike what she did when she was alive.  She's not overtly evil, just another friendly face in the hospitality industry.

Another example is when the Vampire Army patrol enter to track a monster, a vampire that has drunk vampire's blood and become a batwinged aberration.  They act as cops with as much concern with the home owner that we would expect.

Even the "blood shortage" is a thinly veiled analogy about our own fossil fuel dependency.

They even try to solve this problem using a tool that defines Humanity: Science.  From using cameras on cars instead of windows (complete with automated warnings), using walkways between buildings that are completely covered, they work around their limitations of their physiology.  When confronted by a "blood shortage", they immediately get to work on an alternative, which is one of the driving goals of the protagonists.

At least until they figure out a cure for the vampirism.

Ultimately, this human perspective of vampirism really impressed the heck out of me.  Having William Dafoe in a firebird as a bad ass vampire hunter was icing on the cake. :)