Blood and human remains

Don't let this one in: Sam Neill in Daybreakers

DAYBREAKERS *** Directed by Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig. Starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Vince Colosimo, Sam Neill 16 cert, gen release, 89 min
IF, AFTER Twilight, Let the Right One In, True Bloodand all the rest, you have the stomach for just one more vampire entertainment, then you could do worse than check out this nifty, stylish, agreeably disgusting drama from two promising Australian whizz kids.

The notion of a world in which vampirism has become the societal norm is not a new one. (Kim Newman's excellent Anno Draculatrilogy is just one of many fictions to dabble with this conceit.) The Spierig brothers have, however, brought remarkable diligence and resourcefulness to the task of imagining how such a society might function.

Some years after the first vampire chewed his first human neck, cities have become moulded to the needs of the new overlords. A series of “Subwalks” allow citizens to move beneath the streets after sunrise. Motorcars now feature a function – blinds come down and a camera shows the way – that allows the punter to drive at all hours of the day. Signs at school crossings announce they will operate between 3am and 4am.

The Grave New World does have a problem. With most of the human race now transformed into vampires, fresh blood is increasingly hard to find. A sinister conglomerate run by nasty Sam Neill is simultaneously farming humans for their plasma and seeking to develop an artificial alternative. Troubled Ethan Hawke, a research scientist for Neill, begins to have second thoughts and falls in with a cadre of human rebels.

Set in the US but filmed entirely in Australia, Daybreakerscan't be faulted in the areas of set design (alternately smudged and sleek), incidental music (percussive and disorienting) or casting (Willem Dafoe wields a crossbow as only he can). Unfortunately, the writer- directors do run out of plot after about an hour and allow the film to drift into a bloody muddle.

Nonetheless, Daybreakersdoes provide horror fans with an encouraging, viscera-soaked start to the decade.