Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

Blu Review: THE LOVED ONES
18 – 84mins – 2009
Written by: Sean Byrne
Directed by: Sean Byrne
Starring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy, John Brumpton, Victoria Thaine, Richard Wilson, Jessica McNamee, Suzi Dougherty, Victoria Egger, Anne Scott-Pendlebury
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Short film-maker Sean Byrne graduates to feature length productions with this disturbing Aussie torture flick which was marketed off the back of leading man Xavier Samuel's turn as victim-turned-vamp Riley in last year's phenomenally popular Twilight Saga: Eclipse (reviewed HERE).

Samuel plays emotionally addled high-schooler Brent, who hides the guilt and pain of killing his father in a car accident six months previous by burying himself in heavy metal and marijuana binges. When he snubs introverted wallflower Lola's (McLeacy) offer of a date to the prom, Brent is completely unaware of the danger that lays ahead. Knocked unconscious and kidnapped by Lola's deranged daddy (Brumpton), Brent wakes up to a very different dance – one where you most definitely don't want to be crowned prom king.

Big Top, No Morals

Cine Review: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
12A – 120mins – 2011
Screenplay by: Richard LaGravenese
Based on the novel by: Sara Gruen
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, Mark Povinelli, Jim Norton, Ken Foree, James Frain, Paul Schneider, Hal Holbrook
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“Life is the most spectacular show on Earth” so advocates the strapline for this Francis Lawrence directed adap of Sarah Gruen’s 2005 historical circus novel. But for all the tight-rope walkers, coochie girls, bearded ladies and animal attractions thrilling audiences beneath the Benzini Brother’s Big Top, Water For Elephants’ main focus is on the shadow which falls behind the spotlight: human’s cruelty to one another in the Great Depression, and their subsequent cruelty to the animals they depend on for income.

Screen heartthrob Robert Pattinson sheds Edward Cullen’s supernatural shimmer for a sweaty brow and browning shirt and hops aboard a moving railcar as penniless orphan Jacob Jankowski, whose Cornell University-educated veterinary expertise saves him from being thrown straight back off by brutal circus master and all-round rotten bastard August Rosenbluth (Waltz), whose travelling troupe is failing to pull in the punters. Until, that is, he acquires a new star act: Rosie the Bull Elephant.

Charging his glamorous wife, Marlena (Witherspoon), with riding the majestic beast and Jacob with training and caring for it, the animal-admiring pair begin to fall in love, with Marlena torn between a man she in equal parts fears and reveres, and her growing feelings for the quietly dignified roustabout with the smouldering eyes who treats her like a lady.

Square-chinned Waltz is distressingly authentic as the volatile August, who will charm you with champagne and a tuxedo one minute then get his thugs to pummel you the next. Pattinson, meanwhile, pulls his own weight commendably outside the Twilight-verse, even if his love affair with Witherspoon is somewhat melodramatic (Their love is doomed! They can’t be together! He’s “beneath” her!).

Much has been made of the films old fashioned vibe, and Water for Elephants is certainly prone to plentiful period piece properties – the misty-eyed framing by a ninety year old Jacob (Hal Holbrook) who recalls his life story to an intent modern day listener (Schneider), the plight of the common man is showcased by roustabout Camel’s (Norton) prohibition-evading drinking problem, whilst August and Marlena live it up in luxury – but for all the “magic” and “spectacle” of the 30’s festivities, what will stick with you long after the circus has packed up and pulled away is the blood, grit and shit-shovelling which made this such a miserable era to live in.


In a CR@B Shell: Team Edward will swoon while animal lovers will squirm as Rosie and her bestial brethren are subjected to tortuous injustices in the name of entertainment. You hear more than you actually see, but nevertheless Water for Elephants better conveys the atrocities of the era than it does an “enchanting” romance.
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Bestial Desire

Cine Review: RED RIDING HOOD
12A – 100mins – 2011
Written by: David Johnson
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Billy Burke, Lukas Haas, Virginia Madsen, Cole Heppell, Julie Christie
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My, Catherine, what a big Hollywood budget you have! All the better to lure in the lycanthrope-hungry Twi-hards and hoodwink the hardcore horror hounds, my dear. That, in essence, is Ms. Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood; a fairytale reimagining of the flesh-hungry wolf which purports a dark, gothic edge but favours a 12A rating, enchanting snow-steeped medieval beauty and a tediously predictable love triangle instead. Sound familiar? Well, they certainly found the right director then!

Mamma Mia’s Seyfried brings a steely twenty-first century ‘tude to the innocent “’Lil Red” (known here as Valerie), whose village – located on the edge of a menacing forest – has long made animal sacrifices to placate the hunger of a deadly werewolf. That is until Valerie’s sister is slaughtered by the beast under the blood moon and the incensed men of the village set out to slay the swine before famed werewolf hunter Father Soloman (Oldman) arrives to clean up the corpses.

Meanwhile, Valerie is torn between the loves she bares for her lifelong soul mate, the lowly woodcutter Peter (Fernandez), and the wealthy-but-plain iron-forger Henry (Irons), whom it has been arranged she will marry. Well, I say “torn”, but there is absolutely no question as to who Valerie favours, as she sneaks off to the barn for a bit of carnal copping with the dashing lad her family disapproves of. A bit like Edward vs. Jacob in that respect, then?

It’s a shame there wasn’t more depth or dynamic to the romance, as aside from one being blonde and the other brunette, there is actually little in the way of characterisation to separate the male suitors. The film's real mystery is who the werewolf is in human form, with Soloman declaring it must be one of the villagers and Valerie's suspicions falling on everyone from Peter to the village idiot (Heppell), via her own Grandma (Christie), with her big brown eyes and isolated existence living alone deep in the woods. The ambiguity certainly kept me guessing to the very end, and the motives for the wolfman’s kills were neatly explained.

On the downside, I was less than impressed by Brian Reitzell's generic and uninvolving musical score (which usually compliments the atmosphere in brooding, fantastical fare such as this) and I howled with laughter as soon as Valerie communicated with the English-speaking wolf (think Eragon with fur, there’s mercifully no lip movement). But Red Riding Hood’s biggest crime – like its lacklustre rival male leads – is its lack of bite. David Johnson's script required more depth, more darkness and less pensive pawing at the roots of this potentially ferocious folktale. Oh, and more Gary Oldman wouldn't have gone amiss, either.


In a CR@B Shell: Not as toothless as critics would have you believe, but just too fanciful to carve a lasting impression. More ferocity and a less chimeric gloss would have transformed Red Riding Hood's whimpers into snarls and left more than the Twilight tweens afraid of this big, bad(ly CGI-ed) wolf.
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Evil In Its Many Forms

Below are reviews of three markedly different films. One is an animated joy, one a genuinely creepy horror, and one is just plain crap. But all three of them have one associated factor: the presence of e-e-e-evil. Read on if you dare, CR@B fans... *cue devilish laugh*

DVD Review: DESPICABLE ME
U – 95mins – 2010

I have such a soft spot for CGI ‘toons of the Pixar and Dreamworks ilk; so bright and entertaining are they, yet concurrently clever at appealing to everyone. They’re easy viewing without being brainless pap, and I really appreciate their wit and the relatable emotional core which lurks beneath the surface.

Speaking of things lurking beneath the surface (check me and my seamless segues), welcome to the underground HQ of dastardly supervillian Gru (Steve Carell, adopting a cod-Russian accent), who – with the help of an army of Oompa Lumpa-like minions and the technological expertise of maaaaad scientist Dr Nefario (Russell Brand) – is planning his most diabolically devious deed to date: to steal the moon.

But while the authorities are powerless to stop his wickedness and rival supervillians (such as the Jason Segel-voiced Vector) are outwitted by his treachery, Gru is about to be outfoxed by his biggest challenge to date: three cute little orphans by the names of Margo (Cosgrove), Edith (Gaier) and Agnes (Fisher). Aaaaaah.

The juxtaposition between hook-nosed Gru’s lair of macabre ornamentation, dead lawns and multifaceted weaponry and the girl’s innocent lives of pillow fights, fun fairs and ballet recitals is hilarious, while watching Gru’s blackened and lifeless heart slowly resuscitated by the girl’s verve for live is adorably sweet. Who needs the moon when you’ve got three stars at home?

Despicable Me is just further proof that pixelated features are legitimately engaging experiences with the range and depth to pack adventure, fantasy, giggles and heart into their bright, polished forms, and they can be enjoyed by all, irrespective of age or level of supervilliany.

CR@B Rating: aaaaa
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Blu Review: LET ME IN
15 – 116mins – 2010

Such a hard film to review this one, because it indisputably is a mature and accomplished slow burn horror – I can’t fault it on a technical level – and the casting of Kick Ass’s “Hit Girl” Chloe Grace Moretz and The Road’s Kodi Smit-McPhee as two very different social outcasts who find strength in friendship, is perfect, but – and it’s a but of moon-eclipsing magnitude – Let Me In is so comparable to the Swedish original (Let the Right One In, itself only two years old) that its existence is completely futile.

Adapted and directed by Matt Cloverfield Reeves, this English language remake – despite moving the action from a desolate Swedish village to New Mexico – stays so close to John Ajvide Lindqvist’s source novel and original screenplay that it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference – even the sets look like they’ve been recycled! A big effort has been made to deliver an ‘80s atmosphere through the playing of popular music, but to such an over-exerted degree that its inclusion feels forced and false.

Reeves doesn’t take the creepy reveal of forever-pre-teen vampire Abby’s (Moretz) gender-less form to quite the same level of discomfort as Ajvide, but still the script feels the need to retain – repeatedly – the “Would you like me if I wasn’t a girl?” probing, which loses much of its potency when you know it isn’t leading to the almighty shock the 2008 film delivered.

Watched independently, I am certain I would be raving about Let Me In as a morbid yet refreshingly original take on the diluted vampire genre, but having already watched the original production, I know all too well that – as good a film as this undoubtedly is – it isn’t really down to Reeves’s writing or directing talent; the template was already in place. It’s the same argument that raged around [REC] and Quarantine, and Hollywood still haven’t learnt that we can read subtitles, as David Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo remake rears ever closer to its year-end unleashing, just 24 months after the Swedish version received international acclaim…

CR@B Rating: aaaaa
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Blu Review: VAMPIRES SUCK
12 – 78mins – 2010

For the record: vampires do not suck, but this film definitely does. It's the latest disaster-piece from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, two of the six writers who drained the spoof genre dry with the Scary Movie foursome before lampooning any other popular target with evermore puerile and lazy “gag” strewn idiocracy. Vampires Suck, however, is – if possible – a new low.

Sinking its fangs into the phenomenally successful Twilight saga, Vampires Suck does little more than present a slapstick retread of Stephanie Meyer’s original novel and its first sequel, New Moon. Characters names have “creatively” been altered by a couple of letters – thus Bella Swan becomes Becca Crane (Jenn Proske), Edward Cullen becomes Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter) – and the abridged plot adhered to far too rigidly.

To call it a spoof of vampire-themed entertainment is rather deceptive: True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer get all of two seconds recognition, as does cultural icon Lady GaGa, before the writers revert back to their predictable Twilight comfort zone: Jacob (Chris Riggi) producing his contract to clarify he must be topless every ten minutes, Becca being an awkward and frigid newcomer (a trait which, I succeed, Proske nails perfectly), fans warring over which “Team” is best – it’s all been recognised before in much funnier and more dynamic ways.

At least the tagline – “Some Sagas Just Won’t Die” – acknowledges the scale of vitriol levelled at these vacuous wastes of time, but as long as they continue to send-up the trendiest targets, they know they’ll always attract an audience – regardless of what that audience says about the film after they’ve paid their money…

CR@B Rating: aaaaa

Ghosts in the Twilight

TV Review: THE HAUNTED AIRMAN
15 – 68mins – 2006
Teleplay by: Chris Durlacher
Based on the novel by: Dennis Wheatley
Directed by: Chris Durlacher
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Julian Sands, Rachael Sterling, Melisa Lloyd, Daniel Ainsleigh, Scott Handy, Peggy Popovic
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This loose literary reworking of Dennis Wheatley’s “The Haunting of Toby Jugg” stars Hollywood heart-throb Robert Pattinson in a post-Goblet, pre-Twilight role as the disabled and traumatised World War II RAF airman of the title, confined to a wheelchair and committed to a Welsh military hospital to recuperate both psychically and mentally from the injuries that have befallen him.

Whereas Wheatley's 1948 source novel had a strong element of the occult and genuine supernatural hocus-pocus, Chris Durlacher’s BBC Four adaptation keeps all the horrors inside Toby’s shell-shocked mind, as this psychologically damaged patient is plagued by nightmares of the innocent families he killed in bombing raids, while hallucination-conjured spiders scuttle en-mass over his duvet.

In the dreary daylight hours, meanwhile, Toby cannot escape the creeping suspicion that his doctor, Hal Burns (Julian Sands), doesn’t have his best interests at heart, while the aunt (yes, aunt) Toby loves and wishes to marry (Rachael Sterling) isn’t returning any of his handwritten correspondence. With all of this weighing on the disabled pilot’s mind, The Haunted Airman certainly provides the rising Brit-born star with a chance to stretch his limbs – dramatically speaking, at least. Not that Edward Cullen is ever a bundle of laughs...

But for all of the eerie atmosphere and low-shot camera angles, this modest dramatisation is simply far too sluggish to grip your attention, even at little over an hour long. Intercutting scenes within the dank hospital with scarlet-drenched flashbacks to deafeningly chaotic and dramatically shot war memories is clearly an attempt to stun and disillusion the viewer, but it merely comes across as a confusing hindrance, to little narrative purpose.

Style over substance? That certainly seems to be Durlacher's intention, but this tactic is only successful when a production's distinctiveness compliments the material, not when tumultuous cutaways are edited in to juxtapose the brooding and uneventful story at seemingly haphazard instances. Ultimately, the transient tale's conclusion fails to justify the build-up or deliver a satisfying enough twist to tie the events together, leaving you with a creeping suspicion that the cast and crew have somehow missed the point of Wheatley's vision entirely.


In a CR@B Shell: Arachnophobes will be paralysed with fear, but true horror hounds will be left dispirited. Wheatley fans, meanwhile, will cry blasphemy at the significant changes to the novel's essence. Mark this weary Beeb “thriller” up as strictly for R-Patz droolers only.
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Fusty Fanged Federation

Book Review: UPRISING
Written by: Scott G. Mariani
Published in the UK by: AVON
Released: 10th June 2010
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Best known for his high-octane series of Dan Brown-alike mystery thrillers starring intrepid ex-SAS protagonist Ben Hope, Scott G. Mariani's latest prose project – the first in a proposed new saga – is something of a departure for the acclaimed British author. Welcome to modern day London with a supernatural, err, bite... welcome to the world of the Vampire Federation.

Established by the undead hordes to keep their blood-feasting urges from being detected by the technologically savvy human population of the 21st century, the codes of the Vampire Federation are, alas, not adhered to by all neck biters. A rogue sect of traditionalists (or “trads”) lead by ferocious rebel vamp Gabriel Stone are out to bring down the dictatorial Federation, destroy its force of special agents and allow free reign for the fanged creatures of the night.

It was Scott G. Mariani's desire to give the hallmarks of classic vampire mythology – namely those set out in the seminal masterpiece Dracula, which the author openly acknowledges as far more than a passing inspiration – a fresh and modern spin. Hence his action packed world of interspecies civil war is stocked with many an advanced gimmick and gizmo (although cynics may say "story-servicing cheats") which Bram Stoker could scarcely have envisaged: from an arsenal of vamp-dusting weapons, to pills which allow the night-walkers to get a suntan, and injections which wipe the recent memory of any neck-punctured mortal.

Of course, this is one mighty popular sub-genre of horror, and many recent films, series and novels have beaten Uprising to the punch. Blade, Nightwatch, Twilight, the True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse chronicles, 30 Days of Night and Daybreakers are but a few mainstream examples of modern twists to the age-old antagonists. For all Mariani's best intentions, this leaves Uprising with a terribly trite and stale stench. From the shadow strewn back-alley attacks, to the cloak-clad “baddies” with their secret dungeon graveyards and ghoulish minions masquerading as butlers: we've seen it all before.

Uprising's second half improves slightly over the unremarkable and clichéd first 250-odd pages, as venegance-powered human hero DI Joel Solomon finally teams up with Federation agent Alex Bishop and the odd couple head to Venice to track down legendary artefact – and ultimate vampire repellent – the cross of Ardaich (yep, that's another "story-servicing cheat").

With a clear goal, the novel picks up pace and feels more cohesive and focused than the globe-jumping mess of the first half where every bite-sized chapter - prefixed with a different locational brief - introduces yet another two dimensional character; from page to page you don't know where you will be, or who with. Were the chapters not so short (3-5 pages is the average, with many a blank page speeding up the journey) and the writing not so sprightly and easy to digest, I would have given up on Uprising long before the story began to grip me.

Mariani's prose has a strongly cinematic feel. This author clearly prefers writing action to detail, so although the story flies by, you never feel truly immersed. It is as if Uprising was written with one eye on a multi-million dollar Hollywood adaptation and Mariani went all-out to deliver what would look the most mind-blowingly epic on the big screen: there's a Thames speedboat chase, a fight clambering on the London Eye, a high speed car crash and a Dracula-riffing Romanian castle climax. Frankly, it all comes across as a little over indulgent.

The same is true of the over abundance of “fucks,” “shits,” needlessly graphic deaths and out of place sex scenes: I came away with the opinion that Mariani was out to drive home the point that his vampire novel is hip, extreme, current and for adults only. Unfortunately, this all just comes across as a contrived and immature attempt to assert that Uprising definitely isn't Twilight, which was already obvious from the first hint of fang.


In a CR@B Shell: A leisurely read, but Scott G. Mariani's supernatural horror debut brings nothing new to an overcrowded genre. For all its desperate attempts at “modern,” “edgy” and “extreme”, Uprising is a predictable and tired novel which is more hackneyed than homage.
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Fangs, Fur & Pheromones

Cine-review: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
12A – 123mins – 2010
Screenplay by: Melissa Rosenberg
Based on the 2007 novel by: Stephanie Meyer
Directed by: David Slade
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Xavier Samuel, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Dakota Fanning, Sarah Clarke
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I have read a number of reviews for this third silver screen adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s bazillion-selling Twilight saga. A lot of people – or their girlfriend’s – have opinions on it, natch. Every single one of these critical appraisals has cited Eclipse as far and away the best film of the series (so far). By no means a faultless or perfect movie, but far more accomplished than its two plodding predecessors (both of which, tellingly, had different directors). Having now watched David 30 Days of Night Slade’s vision of the teen vamp/werewolf romance, I am going to say something controversial. Brace yourselves, Twi-hards… I actually preferred Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009). There, I said it.

No, before you ask: I have not read any of the books in the series. I have been told that I will appreciate the nuances of the films more once I have (and hopefully a myriad of questions - like why the hell the vampires seem to be made of crystal and “crack” when they are killed? - will be answered), but I refuse to believe it is a necessity; the films should stand up on their own, rather than as flashy and expensive advertisements for their prose counterparts. Besides, this isn't The Da Vinci Code we’re talking about, where countless passages of vital canonical research and Art History back story are edited out or crammed into a split-second of film in order to preserve a humane runtime; this is a teenage fantasy with vampires and werewolves.

The plot, for the unacquainted minority such as I, follows on directly from that which was set up in the previous instalments: Avenging the death of her pack mate (as visualised in Twilight), red-headed vampire Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, an almost imperceptible replacement for Rachelle Laferve) is in Seattle, raising an undead army of ferocious newborns to kill American High School-er Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and break the heart of her vampire lover, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). The Cullen clan begrudgingly agree to a temporary alliance with their lycanthropic enemies in order to take down Victoria and destroy her newborn army, lead by murdered Riley Biers (Xavier Samuel), while Edward and Bella hide out. In the mountains. In a snowstorm. In a tent.

Intertwined with the conflict and action is the saga’s staple serving of romance and melodrama, as Bella is convinced she wants to be turned into a vampire to live her (after)life with Edward – yet she is unsure if, at 18 years-old, she is quite ready to marry him yet!! This may have something to do with her overprotective policeman father, Charlie (Billy Burke), who is, understandably, none-too-keen on the union, or it may have something to do with her best friend – the shirt-phobic, night-howler Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) – who admits he too is head-over-paws in love with our everywoman protagonist. Fangs or fur? Decisions, decision, Miss Swan…

While David Slade does an adequate job with the threequel’s larger scale and more intense battle sequences (even if the CGI werewolves still don’t quite convince – and what is with them “popping” in and out of lupine form?), it is in the quieter, soppier moments that Eclipse repelled me. Yes, I know I’m neither the key demographic or gender, but I didn’t squirm this much in Twilight or New Moon. Perhaps it is the darting from dark tension to light yearning; from fighting to fawning; from Seattle to Forks; which frequently jolted me out of my engagement with the film? Furthermore, I found the scenes with Bella and Edward laying loved-up in a meadow musing on love, sex and marriage to be excruciatingly awkward (akin to many of the criticisms levelled at Christenson and Portman in Attack of the Clones), which is doubly unexcusable given the star’s real life relationship.

Actors who did impress me were Ashley Greene as clairvoyant Cullen, Alice, and Jackson Rathbone as her "blood brother” and head battle trainer Jasper. Both actors bring the requisite peculiarity to their vampiric characters, both physically and in their off-kilter delivery, even if they are sidelined far too often in lieu of the star trio. Eclipsed (ho ho!) also are the Volturi, the powerful, age-old sect of vampires who lose any menace they accrued in New Moon by spending the entire film waiting in the wings. Guided by Dakota Fanning’s vacant Jane, they come across as a coven of self-important kids, only entering the climatic battle after it is over. How noble…

Finally, a tributary story fleshing out Rosalie Hale’s (Nikki Reed) tragic death and transformation via a mournful monologue and montage seemed a redundant attempt to darken the teen love story with a controversially edgy adult tone (Rosalie was raped and killed by her drunken fiancé), merely to provide leverage to the outstandingly obvious: that Bella is making a huuuuuge mistake by wanting to sacrifice her heartbeat for an eternity with Edward. And no, before you ask: that doesn’t mean I’m siding with “Team Jacob”, either…


CR@B Verdict: David Slade doesn’t alter much to the Twilight formula in bringing the third novel to the big screen. More epic in scale but more flitting in plot, Eclipse left me shaken but unstirred by its battles of the body and heart.
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Blood Money for Drained Resources

Blu-Review: DAYBREAKERS – UNSEEN EDITION

18 – 98mins – 2010
Written and directed by: Michael and Peter Spierig
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Defoe, Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas, Christopher Caruso
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Just when you thought the vampire sub-genre had been sucked dry from over a century of diverse fictional incarnations and dubious neutered interpretations (I’m looking at you, fangless and glittering preeners of the Twilight saga), along comes a fresh and ferocious take on the UV-phobic neck biters to inject the undead spawn of Bram Stoker’s mythical archetype with a transfusion of cool. And make no mistake: the Spierig brother’s future-set sci-fi/horror hybrid is bloody cool.

Set in a monochromatic 2019 where the last remaining scraps of humanity are being hunted down and farmed for their plasmic juices in a multi-national pharmaceutical laboratory run by the new and untanned master race, Daybreakers pits heartbeat-sympathiser haematologist – he who searches for a synthetic blood substitute – Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) against his own claret-starved kind when a pocket of human survivors led by Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan) and formerly-fanged Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Defoe) prove to the doc that there is a cure to reverse the vampiric plague and save the mortal race…

What impressed me most about this dark, stylistic future shocker was the Spierig brother's creativity with the subject matter and their striking attention to detail. Writer and director team Michael and Peter really immerse you in their apocalyptic world which comes alive with the undead when the sun goes down. Car windows are blacked out and fitted with roof-fitted cameras to allow for daytime driving; labyrinthine underground walkways provide a safe way to get about town without getting sunburn; brigades of gun-totting human-hunting soldiers are deployed to find food, without which the blood-gluggers slowly degenerate into hideous bat-like Subsiders (gloriously reminiscent of the creature Gary Oldman transformed into in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula). As I said before: bloody cool.

However, the cure (to death?) discovered accidentally by “Elvis” should be taken with a water tower's worth of salt. It’s incredulous bunkum, even in a genre flick peopled by pulseless immortals, but it is adequately sufficient as a plot device to progress the relentless action as malevolent corporation president Charles Bromley (a wonderfully snide Sam Neill) sets about quashing Edward’s resistance, hiding any hint of a cure and mass marketing the synthetic blood substitute for major profit. Cue a dramatic blood-bath finale which is only dampened by a slightly hasty feel to the epilogue.

It is hard for me to believe that a film with such a wickedly inventive premise took nearly 6 years to reach our screens, from Lionsgate acquiring the rights to the script way back in November 2004. But then this is a modestly budgeted Australian production – the State Government even contributed to the $21million raised – with the Spierig brothers having only one previous feature to their name (2003’s little known Undead). That being said, after watching their sophomore effort, I am very excited to see what the brave and imaginative duo create next. Daybreakers is a slick, spirited, sharply-scripted supernatural shocker which delivers on action, chills and gore (hence the 18 rating on this “Unseen Edition” home release) with a sly allegory on man’s profligate attitude to natural resources slipped in for good measure.

CR@B Verdict: Overlook the logic-vacuum of the “cure” & you’ll be treated to an hour and a half of blood-pumping action, spine-tingling horror and car-chase thrills. An atmospheric near-future creature feature with balls, bats and Sam Neill – what more could you ask for?!
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