One of my worries with the attention given to vampires in popular culture is that people will want to be like them.  There are already reports of a “Sanguinarian” subculture of regular homo sapiens (as if there is any other) claiming to have an addiction to human blood.  Not that I want to engage is such ridiculous false equivalencies, but there are those who think this is what Catholics do that when we take Communion at Mass.  The difference between the two is that the former is a dark fantasy, while the latter is a verifiable miracle that can lead the partaker to Heaven.  Still, because there are those that are into the darker stuff, we get movies like Daybreakers (2009).  Given all the issues I have with such material, one would wonder why I would watch it?  Usually, I make other choices, but this one had a twist to it that gave me a Catholic angle to discuss later in this review.

Daybreakers premiered in 2009, but it is later when the film begins, being set in 2019.  At some point in the past, there was an outbreak of some kind that had everyone turning vampire.  My apologies for the vagueness, but neither is the film clear on the details.  What is clearer is that the majority of the population has turned into blood suckers, and the government has legalized hunting humans and farming them for their blood.  This is not a sustainable system, and reports are that the supply of the life sustaining liquid will run out in a matter of weeks.  Working on the problem is a pharmaceutical company called Bromley Marks, headed by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill).  One of his employees, Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), feels like he is close to a solution.  Shortly after we meet him, he is shown a video at work that adds some pressure to his research.  Experimenting on the effects of blood deprivation on vampires, he is show that after a few days they turn into a monster.  They become more batlike than anything resembling their former selves, with leathery wings growing between their arms and torsos.  Nobody in the room wants to suffer this fate, and they press Edward to move ahead with testing.  With the executives and scientists watching, Edward injects his blood substitute into a patient.  For a moment, everything seems normal.  Yet, boils soon break out over the body, along with vomiting.  Once that subsides, the vampire explodes.  With this failure weighing upon Edward, he almost gets into an accident on the way home.  The person at the wheel of the other car is Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan), and Edward is surprised to find that she is human.  She is transporting others like her, who are in hiding, and they all come out brandishing crossbows firing wooden stakes.  There are also police on the way, which would likely lead to the non-creatures of the night being captured and harvested.  Instead, Edward offers to hide them, letting them go after the police are sent in another direction.  They are not the only unexpected encounter.  Upon getting home, he is visited by his brother, Frankie Dalton (Michael Dorman), who is the one that made Edward into a blood sucker.  The process had not been desired by Edward, and he does everything he can to eschew drinking blood.  His distaste is underscored when Frankie brings out a bottle of the genuine article, a rare gift in these fraught times.  An argument breaks out when Edward wants nothing to do with the blood, but they are about to have a bigger problem when one of the deformed vampires bursts into the house.  The brothers are able to defeat the fiend, and the authorities clean up the scene, but there is one last situation with which Edwad must contend.  A few hours later, Audrey appears in the house, and she claims to have found him based on his studies.  Her intrusion comes with a request that he meet someone, with directions to the rendezvous.  It is set for noon, which is supposed to be a safety precaution.  Yet, those with a sun condition have figured out how to black out their vehicles and stay in the shade, which is how Edward has a face-to-face with Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Dafoe).  Elvis is a former vampire who has become human again because of a fluke accident.  Before any more information can be given, Frankie, who followed his brother, appears and tries to take them into custody.  He is overpowered, but Audrey, Edward, and Elvis must escape from other forces chasing them.  They make their way to a former vineyard owned by Audrey’s family, which has become a base of operations for the underground humans.  Once there, Elvis further describes how he reversed his curse, which involves being hit by ultraviolet rays while also simultaneously being doused with water.  This Catholic would call that a baptism, but that is asking too much of this movie.  At any rate, because Charles’ minions have learned of the vineyard after capturing other humans, including his daughter, Alison Bromley (Isabel Lucas), Audrey and company must again flee.  Meanwhile, Frankie is beginning to see that Charles only has his own best interests in mind, particularly when the soldier is asked to turn Alison into one of their kind.  He is also involved in rounding up the ones that are becoming monsters, forcing them to walk into the sunlight and die.  It is in this desperate atmosphere that the now human Edward, accompanied by Audrey and Elvis, return to the city.  They try to meet with Edward’s former colleague, Christopher Caruso (Vince Colosimo), but the current vampire betrays them and Audrey is captured.  Again on the run, they are found by Frankie, who tries to bite Elvis.  The result is Frankie becoming normal, and it is the new cure.  Edward uses this information to bait Charles into trying to suck the hematologist’s blood, and the chief executive officer (CEO) undergoes the same process.  It is a process that is repeated a few more times before Audrey and Edward are able to get away with Elvis.

One could say that at the end of Daybreakers, Elvis has left the building.  Sorry.  What I am less sorry for is that the film does not treat being a vampire as something desirable or glorious.  It is less satisfying that there is not a religious component to this, which is made worse by the fact that Charles refers to being a blood sucker as a blessing.  What I can say with confidence is that becoming a creature of the night, even if that was a thing, is not how God made us to be.  Let us look at their biology.  They cannot be in God’s warming sunlight; they have no heartbeat, which makes one wonder if they have a soul; and they feed on the blood of humans like ravenous beasts.  The tradeoff, as is related by Charles and Frankie at different points, is immortality.  The argument against that is theological, but Elvis has a good one, too.  One of the first things he reminds Edward of when they first meet is the fact that they will one day die.  This is another way in which God has created us, although that was not His original plan.  Genesis talks of the Garden of Eden where the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, dwelled.  When they allowed themselves to be misled by the devil, sin entered the world and we lost that Paradise where there was no death.  Our first parents did not need to bite one another to stay alive.  It was by God’s own hand that they had everything they needed.  Further, the movie does well to emphasize how the existence of so many vampires requires the subjugation of their food.  It is a scenario I have sometimes imagined when thinking about these creatures of the night, and it is a nightmare because it involves inflicting suffering.  That is never a Christian ideal.

If there is anything to appreciate about Daybreakers, it is that it presents a sort of idealized form of a vampire world.  In other words, it is not just about sucking blood.  That is something, although it can still be a little silly.