Eye Candy #399 - "Daybreakers"

Daybreakers:  A slight sci-fiy/horror movie about a near future world where the bulk of humanity has been turned into vampires by a virus.  They harvest blood from the remaining population (some 5%), but the supply of blood is running out, leading to nasty consequences for vampires as apparently drinking your own blood is a big no-no.  Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is a vampire scientist tasked with finding a blood substitute by his boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), before the bulk of the vampire population mutates into what they call “subsiders” (vampires that drink their own blood and turn animalistic).  Along the way, Edward meets a group of surviving humans that have a found a cure for vampirism, which puts him at odds with Bromley who really isn’t all that interested in curing vampires as much as making them immortal consumers of his products.  Willem Dafoe co-stars as a human that successfully changed back from vampirism.  While most vampire pop culture (and holee crap if there isn’t a lot of it) attempts to paint vampires as sexy and erotic, this time around we get the unsexy version - vampires as cube rats, subway commuters, normal joes who just want a little more blood in their coffee in the morning.  Light on exposition (you get no explanation how the original virus worked or how specifically the cure works other than it hurts A LOT).   Nothing noteworthy here, and it relies too heavily on cliché (how is a souped-up muscle car into the Australian sunset NOT a “Mad Max” reference?).  Looks and feels “Matrix-y” (everything has a vaguely green, vaguely fluorescent tinge).    I can see somewhat why this sat on the shelf for years before being released. Woodchuck sez, “Nothing new to see here.”