Daybreakers

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Michael Spierig (“Undead”) and Peter Spierig (“Undead”)
Written by: Michael Spierig (“Undead”) and Peter Spierig (“Undead”)

It’s nice to see vampires back on the big screen that don’t talk about their feelings and sparkle like Edward Cullen and all his “Twilight” pals. But even on the opposite end of the blood-sucking spectrum, “Daybreakers” isn’t what fans of the genre should consider pushing vampirism narrative into new territory (here vamps harvest humans for blood, which is running out in their vampire-run world). The problems is, filmmaking brothers Michael and Peter Spierig aren’t really sure whether or not they wanted to make a really grotesque horror movie or an action film with comedic riffs. The mix seems unbalanced and trite. There is one scene where a hungry vampire-type creature breaks into a kitchen for a late-night fleshy snack, which is fairly frightening. Other than that there is not much entertainment value “Daybreakers” can offer aside from the gallons of blood it splatters in 98 minutes of straight-to-DVD-quality type writing.