Day... whaters?

I noticed yesterday that we're already nearly half-way through January, time really seems to be flying here. I think that's a good thing Not much to report on from yesterday, so let's just skip ahead to the movie review. I saw Daybreakers last night, and I've now checked three times to be sure that was the correct title. Throughout the day I'd been calling it Daywalkers, Daystalkers, just about everything except for Daybreakers. Most people still knew what I meant. Let me start with the cast. I knew Ethan Hawke was in the movie, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see the names Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe show up in the opening credits. Immediately, I knew I was in for something... special. The movies takes place in 2019 according to a small child's calendar, and Hawke plays a hematologist tasked with finding a blood substitute for the world's vampires, as the human population has dwindled to less than 5 per cent (of what, isn't entirely clear). Hawke is a vampire, like everyone else. Vampires retain their human smarts and have built a whole new kind of society, living more or less just the way humans do today. Hawke's character doesn't necessarily like being a vampire, and as the movie later reveals, he is more concerned with finding a cure for vampirism than with finding a blood substitute. We learn about how quickly vampires degenerate from mostly-human to completely ravenous, disfigured horrors called Subsiders if they don't have a steady flow of blood. So yadda yadda there's a couple chase scenes and some betrayal and a couple of touching moments and a lot of blood and exploding vampires (vampires explode, Mike says they were being shot in the heart with wooden stakes, I say the director just wanted the "bad guys" to explode). The movie tries, and sort of succeeds in trying to hit the mark between campy horror and serious social commentary, though it's rarely a clean bullseye. Like so many movies with a very intriguing story, and very compelling conflict, this may have been an outstanding tv show or mini series. In movie form, it was thoroughly bad, but equally enjoyable. I'd recommend the movie, but only with the caveats that it is not a straight-up horror film, nor is it a gore-fest, nor is it particularly thought-provoking. But hey, exploding vampires. Yes please.