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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sneak peek at Fantastic Fest: ‘Daybreakers’
Yet another vampire thriller doesn’t sound that promising for the closing night film at Fantastic Fest, but “Daybreakers,” putting the punctuation mark on this year’s fete, proves a solid closer — a slick, throttling vampire flick with smart twists and, most importantly, gushers of orgiastic gore. Fantastic fans should be delighted.
On Wednesday the press got a sneak peek of the film, which won’t be released until January 8. Being extremely discreet, not revealing too much, this is what we saw:
The world is ruled by vampires. Humans, scared for their lives, are being hunted down by the military for blood harvesting by the undead. A national blood shortage, in critical stages, means that human blood is even rarer and more precious than ever, so a pharmacology lab, with Ethan Hawke its chief hematologist, is attempting to manufacture a blood substitute.
But because he empathizes with the endangered humans — the vampires were once human, after all — Hawke’s good doctor joins the living to help them with a cure for vampirism. (He has a big heart, even if it doesn’t beat.)
What unfurls is a war between the vamps and the humans, with more blood and ripped flesh than you’d expect from a Hollywood picture. Grim undertones of civil rights struggles, bigotry and fear and hatred of the Other are elegantly woven into the action, which isn’t afraid to embrace a cliche or three. But mostly “Daybreakers” keeps it fresh, twinning thrills with compelling ideas and gallons of splatter.
Willem Dafoe, as a southern-fried former vampire, and Sam Neill as the venal CEO of the blood harvesting company, also star.
“Daybreakers” plays at 9:45 p.m. Thursday at the Alamo South, with directors Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig in attendance. More info and the movie’s trailer HERE.
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What I’m watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Wages of Fear” (1953; Henri-Georges Clouzot): Four desperate derelicts, including the strapping Yves Montand, willingly risk their lives to deliver truckloads of nitroglycerin across harrowing terrain in South America. Every bump and jar along the way is an opportunity for explosive obliteration, but the drivers’ need for money supplants good sense. Clouzot’s thriller, at times unbearably tense, recalls Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Both are about bootstrap survival and rivalries among men, with setting playing a decisive role. Holds up terrifically.
- “Ballast” (2008; Lance Hammer): Hammer’s stunningly assured, award-winning debut never made it to Austin theaters, but arrives on DVD on Nov. 10. Set in a poor town on the Mississippi Delta, it follows a single mother and her troubled son as they struggle to stay afloat while pieces of their painful past swirl to the surface. Understated and impressively muted, a sturdy entry in the unofficial neo-neo-realism movement and a vital piece of recent American indie cinema.
- “Frownland” (2007; Ronald Bronstein): A fascinating, baffling what-is-it tightly (claustrophobically) focused on a manic, unhinged fellow ((Dore Mann, in a frighteningly committed performance) in the throes of an urban crack-up. This relentless and uncompromising character study basks in its jagged, grainy aesthetic for a concentrated dose of the modern human condition. It’s often hard to watch, with the screen dominated by a spluttering one-man carnival of perspiring neuroses. But it’s equally hard to pull your eyes away.
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