In which I present the aforementioned Daybreakers Post and Horror Rant
Daybreakers could have been better. That being said, it could have been much, MUCH worse. I give it a solid 3/5.
Daybreakers is a simple concept. Vampires have taken over the world, humans become endangered, and are hunted for food.
The thing is, the human's numbers keep dwindling due to overhunting (hey, now there's a message. See: fish) and the blood supply is getting lower and lower. It's presented rather early on that enough time without blood intake makes the vampire become an almost-mindless beast (or Sub-sider), living only to hunt and feed. So, the choices are bleak: find some way of increasing the blood supply, find an acceptable substitute for blood, or watch society devolve into sheer chaos around you.
There are a few interesting ideas presented, like the concept of "Starblood" as I call it, the coffee with blood mixed into it (with different blood types for discerning customers). I also liked the concept of self-tinting windows and "daytime driving" modes in cars, and the omni-presence of the Subwalk system. It was a bunch of little touches like that that make the concept much more believable.
Along with the little ideas, the little effects in the film were amazing. The eyeshine during dark scenes was a great touch, as was everyone smoking. I loved that. In a world where no one will ever die of cancer again, why not smoke? Oh no! Second-hand smoke will make me... deader.
The sub-sider menace was an interesting touch, and I liked the idea of mutation as a side-effect.
The character Elvis. Dear god was Willem Dafoe a great cast for that role. He plays "just shy of completely fucking crazy"
better than anyone out there nowadays. That, and the idea of a redneck vampire coming back to life just cracked me up.
The redemption concept presented was also interesting. "By fire be purged" came to my mind, but it works in this sense. It kind of flies in the face of tradition, the vampire state was initially a curse, a demonization, and the idea of coming back from that has pretty much always been a big "No". But, the thought of a resurrection, of a walk from the depths of depravity, back up into the light, makes sense. The fact that the blood of these redeemed "cleanses" the still-cursed is an excellent touch, and the final reveal of what it all means is met with what was one of the goriest scenes I've seen in a mainstream film in quite a long time.
On to the negative, and there's not a whole lot. Frankie (and Ed's relationship with him) irritated the hell out of me. "Oh, you're my brother, so I'm going to trust you yet again, despite the fact that you have a long and storied history of violence and betrayal." Also, turning a human woman against her will, then losing all your bluster when she consciously speed-mutates into a sub-sider and then subsequently gets ashed in the Vampire Death March? Yeah, you're really "good at not being a human".
I simply couldn't feel anything at his attempt at martyrdom at the end of the film. It came off as "Frankie getting out of a bad situation by simply not dealing with it". Interestingly enough, with the last shot of Frankie, I find it funny that they used him as the quasi-Christ-analogue (I was betting it was going to be Elvis that they did that with).
Also, I counted 4 jump-scares over the course of the movie with a bat screeching. Really? Can't hammer that concept home enough? Had to do it FOUR times? Yeah, it's a nit-pick, but, it got fucking annoying.
A theme was presented in the film, that of "vampirism as a disease". This isn't really anything NEW, but it's kinda been put on the back-burner as far as most vampire things are involved. The world-wide vampirism is referred to as an "outbreak" several times in the film, and they refer to the redemption act as a "cure". In fact, many parallels can be drawn between the actions of Sam Neill's character and the darker side of modern medicine, specifically with AIDS medication, that the concept of curing a disease is nothing in comparison with the amount of money that can be made by merely treating the symptoms... forever.
It's been said by a professor of mine that horror movies of the age reflect the current fears of the society, and I believe it. In the 50's, horror was dedicated to the fear of the Atomic Bomb, and Things From Beyond The Stars. The 80's brought Body Horror in droves, the Inversion of the Self in the "Age of Me", as well as the ever-present fear of the race to Armageddon.
Nowadays, the big fears come from infectious diseases. In the past 10 years, there's been SARS, Anthrax scares, Avian flu, Swine flu. So, it would follow that our horror films would reflect that. Lo and behold, zombies have been HUGE of late, especially in cinema and books, alongside other variants on the trope (like in Quarantine). Zombies can be seen as the ultimate infectious disease, 100% mortality rate, not to mention a method of replication which involves a long-standing and far-reaching taboo involving the dead.
Vampires are experiencing a new boost in popularity (helped in no small part by the Twilight series (and two generations of emotionally-unstable insecure women all clamoring after the loins of some sparkling berk)), which, try as I might, I can't not be happy about to some small degree.
Sure, Twilight is utter pap, written by "the fat quasi-goth chick in high school who smelt slightly of old meat and constantly repeated GIR quotes and went on to have a series of bitter failed relationships because she figured that being 'quirky' and 'random' was better than actually having a fucking personality and took her angst and shat all her insecurity and sexual frustration out in a glittery masturbatory glampire fiction", but its success is bringing about a revitilization in horror, something desperately needed in this age of "Saw 10: Officially Humping the Pig Corpse".
There's been a small amount of new and interesting horror films of late. Paranormal Activity was interesting, and a new take on the Demonic genre, and had some genuinely creepy scenes, but it took forever to get anywhere, and never fucking delivered. To my chagrin, all the best stuff all happened off-camera.
Some films are treading old ground in new ways, though: namely, the upcoming remake of The Wolfman. I am so excited for this I can't contain it. Personally, I think the last REALLY good werewolf film made was American Werewolf in London, and that film is as old as I am, for fuck's sake (that said, the transformation scene in AWiL is still, hands down, the BEST transformation scene EVER, and it was before believable CG. Genuine movie magic). American Werewolf in Paris was just sloppy in story and execution, and, had it been a film of its own, wouldn't really be worth mentioning, but, since it masqueraded as a spiritual successor to AWiL, I have to remark that it failed miserably.
The Ginger Snaps series peaked early. The first one was interesting and cleverly written, but the second film tried to be more edgy and wound up just being weird, and the third was, quite literally, "Let's take Ginger Snaps and set it in the wilderness in Canada in the mid-1800's." Note for note, the same fucking film, just a different backdrop. That was enough to sour me on the series as a whole.
Dog Soldiers was terrible. I mean it was absolute, utter shit. It does hold a special place in my heart for taking place in Scotland, but, really, it was so bad I can't speak about it any more for fear of making myself angry at wasting the time in my life to see it.
So, remaking the classic Wolfman has me somewhat eager, yet wary. It could begin a whole new shift in horror... but it could also be absolutely terrible. We'll have to wait and see.
Daybreakers is a simple concept. Vampires have taken over the world, humans become endangered, and are hunted for food.
The thing is, the human's numbers keep dwindling due to overhunting (hey, now there's a message. See: fish) and the blood supply is getting lower and lower. It's presented rather early on that enough time without blood intake makes the vampire become an almost-mindless beast (or Sub-sider), living only to hunt and feed. So, the choices are bleak: find some way of increasing the blood supply, find an acceptable substitute for blood, or watch society devolve into sheer chaos around you.
There are a few interesting ideas presented, like the concept of "Starblood" as I call it, the coffee with blood mixed into it (with different blood types for discerning customers). I also liked the concept of self-tinting windows and "daytime driving" modes in cars, and the omni-presence of the Subwalk system. It was a bunch of little touches like that that make the concept much more believable.
Along with the little ideas, the little effects in the film were amazing. The eyeshine during dark scenes was a great touch, as was everyone smoking. I loved that. In a world where no one will ever die of cancer again, why not smoke? Oh no! Second-hand smoke will make me... deader.
The sub-sider menace was an interesting touch, and I liked the idea of mutation as a side-effect.
The character Elvis. Dear god was Willem Dafoe a great cast for that role. He plays "just shy of completely fucking crazy"
better than anyone out there nowadays. That, and the idea of a redneck vampire coming back to life just cracked me up.
The redemption concept presented was also interesting. "By fire be purged" came to my mind, but it works in this sense. It kind of flies in the face of tradition, the vampire state was initially a curse, a demonization, and the idea of coming back from that has pretty much always been a big "No". But, the thought of a resurrection, of a walk from the depths of depravity, back up into the light, makes sense. The fact that the blood of these redeemed "cleanses" the still-cursed is an excellent touch, and the final reveal of what it all means is met with what was one of the goriest scenes I've seen in a mainstream film in quite a long time.
On to the negative, and there's not a whole lot. Frankie (and Ed's relationship with him) irritated the hell out of me. "Oh, you're my brother, so I'm going to trust you yet again, despite the fact that you have a long and storied history of violence and betrayal." Also, turning a human woman against her will, then losing all your bluster when she consciously speed-mutates into a sub-sider and then subsequently gets ashed in the Vampire Death March? Yeah, you're really "good at not being a human".
I simply couldn't feel anything at his attempt at martyrdom at the end of the film. It came off as "Frankie getting out of a bad situation by simply not dealing with it". Interestingly enough, with the last shot of Frankie, I find it funny that they used him as the quasi-Christ-analogue (I was betting it was going to be Elvis that they did that with).
Also, I counted 4 jump-scares over the course of the movie with a bat screeching. Really? Can't hammer that concept home enough? Had to do it FOUR times? Yeah, it's a nit-pick, but, it got fucking annoying.
A theme was presented in the film, that of "vampirism as a disease". This isn't really anything NEW, but it's kinda been put on the back-burner as far as most vampire things are involved. The world-wide vampirism is referred to as an "outbreak" several times in the film, and they refer to the redemption act as a "cure". In fact, many parallels can be drawn between the actions of Sam Neill's character and the darker side of modern medicine, specifically with AIDS medication, that the concept of curing a disease is nothing in comparison with the amount of money that can be made by merely treating the symptoms... forever.
It's been said by a professor of mine that horror movies of the age reflect the current fears of the society, and I believe it. In the 50's, horror was dedicated to the fear of the Atomic Bomb, and Things From Beyond The Stars. The 80's brought Body Horror in droves, the Inversion of the Self in the "Age of Me", as well as the ever-present fear of the race to Armageddon.
Nowadays, the big fears come from infectious diseases. In the past 10 years, there's been SARS, Anthrax scares, Avian flu, Swine flu. So, it would follow that our horror films would reflect that. Lo and behold, zombies have been HUGE of late, especially in cinema and books, alongside other variants on the trope (like in Quarantine). Zombies can be seen as the ultimate infectious disease, 100% mortality rate, not to mention a method of replication which involves a long-standing and far-reaching taboo involving the dead.
Vampires are experiencing a new boost in popularity (helped in no small part by the Twilight series (and two generations of emotionally-unstable insecure women all clamoring after the loins of some sparkling berk)), which, try as I might, I can't not be happy about to some small degree.
Sure, Twilight is utter pap, written by "the fat quasi-goth chick in high school who smelt slightly of old meat and constantly repeated GIR quotes and went on to have a series of bitter failed relationships because she figured that being 'quirky' and 'random' was better than actually having a fucking personality and took her angst and shat all her insecurity and sexual frustration out in a glittery masturbatory glampire fiction", but its success is bringing about a revitilization in horror, something desperately needed in this age of "Saw 10: Officially Humping the Pig Corpse".
There's been a small amount of new and interesting horror films of late. Paranormal Activity was interesting, and a new take on the Demonic genre, and had some genuinely creepy scenes, but it took forever to get anywhere, and never fucking delivered. To my chagrin, all the best stuff all happened off-camera.
Some films are treading old ground in new ways, though: namely, the upcoming remake of The Wolfman. I am so excited for this I can't contain it. Personally, I think the last REALLY good werewolf film made was American Werewolf in London, and that film is as old as I am, for fuck's sake (that said, the transformation scene in AWiL is still, hands down, the BEST transformation scene EVER, and it was before believable CG. Genuine movie magic). American Werewolf in Paris was just sloppy in story and execution, and, had it been a film of its own, wouldn't really be worth mentioning, but, since it masqueraded as a spiritual successor to AWiL, I have to remark that it failed miserably.
The Ginger Snaps series peaked early. The first one was interesting and cleverly written, but the second film tried to be more edgy and wound up just being weird, and the third was, quite literally, "Let's take Ginger Snaps and set it in the wilderness in Canada in the mid-1800's." Note for note, the same fucking film, just a different backdrop. That was enough to sour me on the series as a whole.
Dog Soldiers was terrible. I mean it was absolute, utter shit. It does hold a special place in my heart for taking place in Scotland, but, really, it was so bad I can't speak about it any more for fear of making myself angry at wasting the time in my life to see it.
So, remaking the classic Wolfman has me somewhat eager, yet wary. It could begin a whole new shift in horror... but it could also be absolutely terrible. We'll have to wait and see.