I was pleasantly surprised that I actually enjoyed this movie, here’s why:

Horror movies are inevitably funny, usually due to their low budgets and the fact they usually take themselves overly serious certainly doesn’t help. Daybreakers feels like it was doomed to this track, however the Spierig brothers appear to have realized somewhere along the way that their script for a serious vampire-sci-fi movie (yes, a very bad combination to begin with) was hilarious. All credit must go to Willem Dafoe who made this movie entertaining. He arrives roughly halfway through, and the seriousness slowly converts to humour, just in time for most of the actual action.

Surprisingly the duality in the picture works well. The seriousness in the beginning aids in making the scenes jumpy and tense, while the relaxed-humour towards the end makes the inevitable gore festival of an 18A a laugh-fest.

Here are the reasons why I didn’t like the movie:

Clichés abounded throughout, and to name a few: No reflections in mirrors, seriously? Sadly yes. Vampires set on fire in sunlight, but I’ll forgive this one as it is actually used for an interesting and unique plot point. Vampires explode when they die, but apparently not when they burn to death.

The ending isn’t a cliff hanger, it isn’t even an ending. Nothing is resolved, there’s no feel of accomplishment for watching through an epic-adventure. I suppose this is to leave it open for a sequel, however it could have been done much better. It was a very ungratifying end.

Overall: 7/10

For fans of Willem Dafoe or comedy-horrors, this movie is worth watching. For the rest of the general public, it certainly isn’t worth the ticket price in the theatres. If you like seeing things on the big screen, perhaps look to see if your local theatre has a slow-day deal, like popcorn and drink included in the ticket price as at least you’re getting a little more for your money.

This is definitely a movie to rent, it’s an enjoyable watch and doesn’t feel like you wasted an unrecoverable 98 minutes. The ending is a bit weak, but the rest of the movie is definitely strong, and doesn’t suffer from a killer slow-period in the middle, in fact the movie as a whole is very well paced.

Judgement: Rent it

©2012 Nik Gregory. All Rights Reserved.