Who's Playing Who?

Ethan Hawke Michael Dorman Sam Neill Isabel Lucas Claudia Karvan Harriet Minto-Day Jay Laga'aia Damien Garvey Willem Dafoe Carl Rush Paul Sonkkila Vince Colosimo

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Edward Dalton Frankie Dalton Charles Bromley Alison Bromley Audrey Bennett Lisa Barrett Senator Turner Senator Westlake Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac Al Walker General Williams Christopher Caruso

What Do The Critics Say?

"A thinking person's vampire flick with deliciously gory action, an underlying social message, lean direction, and best of all, no obnoxious product placement or pop music." Mark Pollard KUNG FU CINEMA "Several witty gore scenes are more like a George Romero zombie opus than a vampire flick (not a bad thing in my book), while the glossy visuals suggest the Wachowski brothers (and especially "The Matrix") are a significant influence. 'Daybreakers' a solid horror film." Tom Charity CNN "One of the best and most inventive vampire movies I have seen in a long time." Kevin McCarthy BDK REVIEWS "Unlike the current cinematic vampire milieu created for lovestruck teenagers, Daybreakers is fierce and scary and downright thrilling to look at." Liz Braun JAM! MOVIES "If you like your entertainment to be completely unpretentious and to have a good sense of humor about itself, "Daybreakers" is definitely one for you. A bloody, fun start to the new year." Christopher Smith BANGOR DAILY NEWS "Stylish, engaging and yes, intelligent, the Spierig brothers have fashioned a commercially attractive and creatively decent movie for the vampire genre, bridging the divide between slasher and thriller. Gore fans will be satisfied, but the film also caters for the broader audience whose taste for thrills requires the cast to act intelligently: I use the word act in all its senses." Andrew L Urban URBAN CINEFILE

"Daybreakers has plenty of clever social relevance and biting political commentary mixed into the pot of gore and violence. It's got both style and smarts. A profoundly original genre story created by Australian filmmaking brothers Michael and Peter Spierig." Frank Wilkins REELTALK MOVIE REVIEWS "The cast is uniformly excellent. In addition to name actors Hawke and Dafoe, Sam Neill co-stars as the blood corporation’s greedy president, Charles Bromley. This clever twist on the vampire genre provides a much-needed, big-screen jolt of social satire and blood-drenched horror." Rev Chris Carpenter MOVIE DEAREST REVIEWS "A gripping feature that is just as likely to provoke thought as it is fear." Chris Tilly IGN UK "Clearly a cult hit in the making and horror fans should eat it up like a vampire with a fresh kill." Brian Tallerico HOLLYWOOD CHICAGO "A first-rate vampire flick with solid action and a story that's never been seen before. Go in with high expectations and you won't be disappointed." Paul Chambers CNN "The film looks great with George Liddle's stylish production design, while Christopher Gordon's complex score boosts the tension. The visual effects with zombies exploding and fiery experiments in the sunlight are all well done and much of the time we are on the edge of our seat, wondering where the story will lead. An imaginative and arresting genre film that delivers on all counts." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE

The Inside Story Following the success of their 2003 Melbourne International Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize winning debut zombie horror film, "Undead", writer/directors Peter and Michael Spierig decided to take on the vampire genre with their sci-fi thriller, "Daybreakers". But instead of referencing the familiar gothic strains of Bram Stoker or Anne Rice, the brothers ushered vampires into the future, imagining a sleek, not too distant world in which everyone, from school children to office workers and CEOs, is a bloodsucker. "Daybreakers questions how we would adapt if we all became vampires tomorrow," Michael Spierig explained. "It twists the rules of typical vampire movies without discarding or disrespecting what we love about the genre." The Spierigs’ ingenuity and sly sense of humor is on full display during the film’s opening sequence, which depicts vampires commuting to work in the dark and lining up for shots of blood at Starbuck’s. "Instead of hiding out in caves, castles, or traditional underground dwellings, vampires have chosen to accept their place in life (or death) and returned to the suburbs," says Peter Spierig. "They have continued on with their day to day, or now, night to night existence only with slight vampire modifications." But being at the top of the food chain has its perils. Human beings: the vampires only food supply, comprise only about five percent of earth’s total population, and their numbers are rapidly dwindling. The mass panic of a population on the brink of exhausting its once-plentiful resources has obvious relevance to our current global state. "Daybreakers is a lot like the great science fiction films that were made during the 1950s," posits producer Chris Brown. "They commented on what happened politically in their time, in terms of communism or the bomb. And so it’s exciting that "Daybreakers" does the same thing. There’s plenty of blood and violence to please genre fans, but the movie has something to say." "There’s something almost punk rock about the old genre movies and I felt that immediately with Daybreaker," adds Ethan Hawke, who, in the Spierig brothers film plays Ed Dalton, a hematologist who is also a vampire. "There’s this kind of deep counterculture vein running through it." "We love this genre; it’s what we grew up on," Michael Spierig avows. "Ever since we can remember, sci-fi/horror movies have fascinated and excited us. Not just because of the visceral thrills a good horror picture can evoke, but because, quite simply, the creative possibilities are endless." After selling a sixteen page treatment of "Daybreakers" to film studio Lionsgate, Michael and Peter Spierig developed the script with the company for over two years. Producer Chris Brown was stunned by the first draft he read. "It was such an original idea. Genre is great fun, but the thing that made this script so exciting is that it was a new take on a very established form." From the moment of their first meeting, Peter and Michael Spierig knew they had found the ideal producer in Brown. "All our references were the same and we’d all seen the same movies," Brown said. "In fact, I think I may have seen even more horror movies than they had! The three of us are huge sci-fi/horror fans so that first meeting was like a genre convention!" When it came to casting the part of Ed Dalton, the brothers dreamed of having Ethan Hawke (Sgt Jake Roenick in "Assault on Precinct 13"), commit to the role. After all, they had written the part with the star in mind. "We’ve always really liked the choices Ethan has made as an actor," Michael said. "He picks very interesting films. He’s intelligent, vulnerable and interesting. We didn’t know if he’d be interested or not, but he was the one we always wanted." Despite the Spieig brothers enthusiasm to have him in the lead role, Hawke admits he was initially wary of committing to a genre project, but the script’s thematic complexity appealed to him immediately. "I had absolutely no intention of liking it," he recalls. "I decided that I’d give it ten pages, and by page five I knew that I was going to do it. I could tell right away that the story was completely unique and a lot of fun. It’s my hope that the movie will work with people who are determined not to like sci-fi/horror movies, as I was, and that those who do like them will really love this one." The unlikely hero of "Daybreakers", Ed Dalton is a vampire hematologist who’s charged with inventing a human blood substitute before the human food supply runs out and vampires starve to death. Unlike most others of his kind, Dalton is morally conflicted about his condition. Though he craves human blood, he refuses to drink it, gradually weakening himself on a second-rate diet of animal blood. "I think Peter and Michael will tell you Ed’s journey is the Phoenix story," Hawke says. "He’s dead and he rises from the ashes. It’s about how you go from being the walking dead to an awake and alive human being, which is a pertinent allegory for all of us." On set, Peter and Michael Spierig ("The Big Picture") were thrilled with everything Hawke was able to contribute to the process. "Ethan doesn’t just walk in and deliver the lines," says Peter. "He brings with him some very smart ideas. He’s a director and writer as well as an actor, so he understands story and character very well." Hawke reports that "Daybreakers" was his first experience working with two directors simultaneously, a process he found unexpectedly enjoyable. "I’ve always thought that if there were two directors, one must really be the director and the other more the writer, but Peter and Michael are both very much the director. The first day one of them came up to me and said, 'You know, I loved that, when you touched your ear.' But then the other one came up and said, 'Don’t touch your ear!' I welcomed that, though, because it made me realise that there’s no right or wrong way; there’s just a preference. There’s a certain kind of freedom in that." Once Hawke was cast, the brothers approached 2001 Independent Spirit Award winner Willem Dafoe ("Shadow of the Vampire") for the role of Elvis, having long admired the actor for the diversity of his film roles. "I always look at the character and what he does, and then I ask myself if that’s the kind of adventure I’d like to take as an actor," says Dafoe. "Sometimes in a genre movie like this, the filmmakers are far more interested in the special effects than in the actors. But the Spierig brothers are very personal filmmakers. Their first feature was made by maxing out credit cards and shooting in their backyard and making it however they could. These guys aren’t careerists. They just feel very deeply about making movies and this is the language they know best." Sam Neill had never played a vampire before, yet he jumped at the chance to play Bromley, the corrupt president of a corporation that farms humans for their blood. "The thing that really made me laugh and made me want to read the rest of the script was the thought of all these vampires lining up at Starbucks to have their shot of blood. It seemed to be a ridiculously cool universe," says AFI Award winner Neill. "I had a great deal of fun with the role." Bromley’s human daughter, Alison, is played by Isabel Lucas, first known to Australian audiences for her work on the local television series, "Home and Away" and more recently her move to Hollywood and subsequent role in the blockbuster "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." Peter admits "Michael and I had never seen Isabel’s show, but after the audition it was clear that she was the standout. She brought an honesty and a vulnerability to her role." Lucas's character, who has been in hiding with the human rebels for over ten years, eventually comes face to face with her vampire father in a chilling familial showdown. "It was a joy to watch Isabel work with Sam," says Michael. "She really held her own, and given where her character goes and the kind of choices she has to make, Isabel committed to the part completely." Aussie actors Claudia Karvan and Michael Dorman complete the lead cast. "Claudia is a big television star in Australia but not that well known outside the country," Brown ("Suburban Mayhem") explained. "I think she’s going to be a big revelation. She brought an enormous amount of experience to the film and was a great balance between Ethan and Willem. And Michael is a very exciting new talent. When we were looking for someone to play Ethan’s brother he came in and tested and just blew us away. He was fantastic." The brothers admit they were initially intimidated by the thought of working with such experienced actors as Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill. Their fears soon dissipated. "It was terrifying for about five minutes," Michael recalls. "And then you realise that you’re behind schedule and over budget, and you’ve just got to get on with it. All the cast were very down to earth, so they made it easy for us. They all came ready to work." Production commenced in 2007 in Queensland, Australia. "Their vision of how the film should look and what they wanted to achieve didn’t ever change from the first time I spoke to them," Brown avows. "They did their own full, animated previews of the sequences they wanted to shoot; they storyboarded every single frame of the film and they did their own special effects. And that’s just the technical side. They also wrote the script, so of course they had a unique understanding of the characters and always communicated their ideas extremely clearly." Designer George Liddle ("Darkness Falls") served as both production and costume designer on the film, which enabled him to create a seamless aesthetic for the film. Liddle explains that he and the directors consciously avoided anything resembling the gothic style of typical vampire stories. "We wanted a world that was recognisable to our own, with some futuristic accents." he says. "We made the sets quite modern and hard-edged, using blocks of grey and black fitted with fluorescent strip lights. And then the human world: the sanctuary. has a lot more warmth and tone." Director of photography Ben Nott ("Salem's Lot") worked closely with Liddle, designing much of the lighting into the sets. "Every cameraman forms a relationship with the designer that is paramount to the outcome of the film. George’s work is always fantastic and I was very pleased to have the opportunity to work with him." In another departure from the norm, Nott and the brothers made an aesthetic choice to shoot the film digitally using the Genesis system. "We felt that the digital image had a clean sterility to it, which worked well for the vampire world," Nott offered. "We wanted their world to be fairly devoid of color. We chose a cool, monochromatic pallet." Special make-up effects designer Steve Boyle had one of the biggest tasks on the production: to create an army of vampires, as well as several 'subsiders': vampires that have fed off the blood of other vampires and turned into maniacal, bat-like creatures. "Peter and Michael told me to think of all the vampire movies I’d ever seen and then to forget everything! They wanted to focus on the humanity of these creatures." Synopsis

The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world's population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered second-class species. The survivors have been forced into hiding and driven to the brink of extinction. Now they're ruthlessly hunted: their blood farmed for vampire consumption. It's all up to Edward Dalton, a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that may sustain vampires and spare the remaining humans. But time and hope are running out: until Ed meets Audrey, a human survivor who leads him to crossbow wielding Lionel Cormac. Thanks to a strange twist of fate, Lionel has made a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Dalton must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race.

The Verdict "If you're a fan of the vampire genre, you are in for a real treat, thanks to the combined, creative talents, of the Spierig Brothers who have put a whole new twist on what you would normally expect from a film featuring those bloodsucking creatures of the night. "Daybreakers", shot in Queensland, has a unique look about it. So much so, it lead one film industry veteran to note: "Brisbane never looked so good." But, "Daybreakers" has much more going for it than looks. The storyline is an 'end of days' tale in which both the dominant Vampire population and the few surviving humans are at risk of extinction. It is imaginative storytelling that holds ones interest throughout the films neat, ninety eight minute, run time. And the cast? Sam Neill plays an evil bastard you'll hate; Ethan Hawke plays a Vampire torn between remain loyal to his fellow Vampires and helping the humans; Claudia Karvan looks good in a tanktop; Michael Dorman plays the angst riddled brother; Isabel Lucas gives a heartfelt performance as the tragic daughter, while Willem Dafoe, who played bad guys in films such as: Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The English patient and The Clearing; and who once said in a press interview: "I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider', plays crossbow-toting hero 'Elvis'. "Daybreakers" deserves to be successful and there are enough fans of the genre suggest it should be. But, that will depend entirely on cinemagoers tatses. While blood may not be on everyones menu, "Daybreakers" really should be. 4 STARS." The Crew

Director Writers Producers Original Music Cinematography Film Editor Casting Production Designer Art Direction Set Decoration Costume Design

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Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig The Spierig Brothers Chris Brown/Bryan Furst/Sean Furst Christopher Gordon Ben Nott Matt Villa Nikki Barrett George Liddle Bill Booth Matthew Putland George Liddle

Run Time 98 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2010 - Hoyts Distribution - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 The Movie Pages & impact Internet Services. All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian and International Copyright. Trademark Laws and Intellectual Property Rights apply.