History Film / Daybreakers

* OhCrap: [[spoiler: When Bromley is made human again after drinking Edward's blood, he's tied to a chair and sent down in an elevator to a squadron of waiting vampire soldiers...who are all starving. Bromley has a clear moment of panic when he realises what's about to happen, before several soldiers pounce on him and tear him limb from limb.]]

* HorrorHunger: Blood deprivation is what made the subsiders the way they are. Abstaining is not an option.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: In some of the images/videos which briefly explain [[HowWeGotHere how the world came to be vampire-dominated]] at the start of the film, one sees indications that the vampires initially attempted diplomacy with humanity, but their envoys were rejected.

* JabbaTableManners: After the blood ration is cut to 5% a riot breaks out at a coffee booth, with vampires greedily slurping up broken blood bags even as they're subdued by riot police. Even the coffee vendors join in the feeding frenzy.

* KarmicDeath: The vampire bureaucracy was treating humans like cattle; in the end [[spoiler:head bureaucrat Charles Bromley ends up being slaughtered like one]].

* ProfessorGuineaPig: Edward volunteers to have the humanity-restoring process tested on himself.

-->'''Senator Turner''': "Hey, being a vampire ''and'' [[AcceptableProfessionalTargets a politician]], it can be hard to make friends."

* NiceHat: Much of the fashion is 1930s retro. For those whom sunlight can burn and kill, wearing a fedora actually makes a lot of sense.
** This is also possibly an extrapolation of how fashion trends tend to move in cycles, and some have predicted such fashions might come back by 2019.

* BadassPacifist: Bromley's daughter Allison, who refuses to drink anyones blood but her own after being turned.

** The Vampire girl in the prologue, who kills herself by sitting outside during the sunrise. Promotional Material for the film reveals that she was in fact Patient Zero. It's implied that she committed suicide because NotGrowingUpSucks, with the guilt of starting a worldwide outbreak that transformed everyone into Blood-thirsty Vampires playing a part too.
** Another reason for her suicide is probably [[spoiler: the fact that both Vampires and Humans are now an endangered species; if Humans go extinct, Vampires will lose their food supply and turn into ravenous monsters.]]

* TranshumanTreachery: Most of the Vampires seem to consider Humans to be a separate species and lesser form of life. This is despite TheVirus only having been around for the last ''ten'' years and some of them were still human up until ''five'' years ago.

** The 2009 Outbreak of vampirism turned 95% of Earth's human population into vampires within a year. Ten years on, they practically run the world.
** If a Vampire feeds on Vampire blood, [[spoiler:it will turn them insane and mutate them into monsters.]]

* ZombieApocalypse: Vampire Apocolypse, but similar principle.

* GrossUpCloseUp: This movie had a ''lot'' of these.

* HighConcept: What if traditional vampires (the kind whose bite always produces another vampire) really did exist, and had all of our modern corporate supply chains and technology to help them survive and keep from going extinct?

** If deprived of human blood for a time, vampires will revert to a twisted state with no hair, pointed ears, and their arms turning into bat-like wings, their minds also reverting to an apparently [[FeralVampires animal intelligence]]. They pretty much LookLikeOrlok.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daybreakers_poster.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:At least ''Film/TheMatrix'' [[LotusEaterMachine lets you dream]] in [[PeopleJars your little tube]].]]

* BodyHorror: The Subsiders full stop. Vampires that have fed on vampire blood mutates them into feral monsters whose arms devolve into bat like wings and feet develop into bat like feet. It’s truly horrifying to see.

* BrokenAesop: The film set in a world of vampires and a dwindling supply of blood is basically one long analogy for our dependance of oil. Which is fine right up until the end where they create a substitute for blood which gives us not, "don't blindly waste resources and deal with the problem before it becomes a problem" but "blindly waste resources and science will stop the collapse of civilization just in the nick of time." It gets further broken when you consider that alternatives to fossil-fuels already exist; they're just not yet economical.

* RealityEnsues: You don't have to be a math prodigy to figure this out: what happens when vampires multiply their ranks to the point that they rule the world and have drunk humanity down to the brink of extinction? [[PyrrhicVictory They starve.]]
** It's mentioned in a news report towards the beginning that vampiric animals are causing forest fires when the sun rises. Just because flames are magical in nature doesn't mean they won't set things alight, and animals won't know to hide from the sun like a human will.

** While reminiscent of peak oil and fossil fuel depletion in general, it's also reminiscent of any number of scarcity issues, corporate ethics issues, and the like. [[WebVideo/VampireReviews Maven of the Eventide]] noted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nluqgSzKYsY her video]] on the film that, ten years later, its metaphor is just as applicable ClimateChange, with the vampires' short-sighted destruction of vital resources quite possibly leading to their extinction.

%%* BreakTheCutie: Frankie, [[spoiler:infecting Bromley's daughter.]]

** While reminiscent of peak oil and fossil fuel depletion in general, it's also reminiscent of any number of scarcity issues, corporate ethics issues, and the like. [[WebVideo/VampireReviews Maven of the Eventide]] noted in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nluqgSzKYsY her video]] on the film that, ten years later, its metaphor is just as applicable to GlobalWarming, with the vampires' short-sighted destruction of vital resources quite possibly leading to their extinction.

* ItsAllAboutMe: The best explanation for why [[spoiler:Chris wanted his blood substitute to go ahead rather than Edward's newly-discovered cure; he wants to be the one to 'save the world']].

* JustDesserts: [[spoiler:Bromley is ripped limb from limb and devoured by his own vampire minions after he is turned back into a human against his will.]]

* BadassNormal: Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac, played by Creator/WillemDafoe.

* BatOutOfHell: Blood-starved vampires degenerate into mindless werebat-like "subsiders" that terrify the regular vampires.
** One of the early news feeds implies that it was a bat that started the entire vampire infection.

* ShowDontTell: The opening of the movie is practically a shrine to this; it's easy to figure out that vampires have taken over the world long before the word is used.

By the year 2019, a vampire plague has overtaken the world. Vampires make up 95% of the population and all of its citizens and their legitimate governments. The humans are outlaws and hide mostly in the wilderness where they're hunted like animals.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Alison chooses to let herself turn into a subsider and be killed than live as a vampire.

* BittersweetEnding: Yes, our heroes found a cure, but it's not clear whether it'll work on the subsiders, they still face considerable opposition to administering it (not to mention that getting fed on tends to be fatal from the wounds), and casualties from the worldwide war between humans and vampires will surely continue to mount.

* DeathIsDramatic: Alison's execution, where she is being dragged down the hallway and finally goes up in flames together with the other subsiders.
* DefiantToTheEnd: Even after transforming into a subsider, Alison is still able to recognize and lash out at Frankie, staring him down as she's pulled into the sunlight.

** Blood-deprived vampires turn into Subsiders, and the non-deprived consider these FeralVampires a threat. Of course, the reason the Subsiders are starving is that they tend to be poor, homeless, outcast or otherwise "undesirable" members of society. The government decides there's only one solution. At the hands of the military, the Subsiders are hunted down, chained up and mass-executed by a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_marches_(Holocaust) death march]] into the sunlight. These unfortunate victims are reduced to ash and smoke.

** The Vampire girl in the prologue, who kills herself by sitting outside during the sunrise. Promotional Material for the film reveals that she was in fact Patient Zero. It's implied that she committed suicide because she will never grow older, with the guilt of starting a worldwide outbreak that transformed everyone into Blood-thirsty Vampires playing a part too.

* EvilTastesGood: Bromley's intention to keep selling human blood even after a safe blood substitute goes to market, since some people will always pay a premium for the real thing -- never mind that it's coming from PeopleFarms that are no longer necessary for the vampires' survival.
* FaceHeelTurn: Chris seems like a fairly good guy until he solves the blood substitute formula just seconds before Edward arrives and tells him about the cure, and after wrestling between the two he decides he'd rather stay a vampire and rats Edward out.

* HeelFaceTurn: Double subverted with Frankie. First he pretends to ally with his brother, just to attack Elvis the very next moment. However, because HumanityIsInfectious, he turns human to complete his HeelFaceTurn and subsequently [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redeems himself]].
* HeroicSacrifice: Frankie again. He offers himself up to a group of starving vampires in order to buy time for his brother to get away.

* HorrorHunger: The need for blood doesn't seem so bad until one realizes deprivation is what made the subsiders the way they are.

* HumanityEnsues: This is what ultimately happens to Charles Bromley. Edward Dalton then sends him down the elevator, to where an army of starving vampires are waiting. HilarityEnsues, albeit very bloody and macabre kind of hilarity.

* JabbaTableManners: After the blood ration is cut to 5% a riot breaks out at a coffee booth, with vampires greedily slurping up broken blood bags even as they're subdued by riot police. Even the coffee venders join in the feeding frenzy.
* JustDesserts: [[spoiler:Bromley]] is ripped limb from limb and devoured by his own vampire minions after he is turned back into a human against his will.

--> '''Edward''': Welcome [[BroughtDownToNormal back]] to humanity. Now ''[[TheHunterBecomesTheHunted you]]'' get to die!
* KarmicTransformation: After years of farming humans for profit, Bromley gets tricked into taking the cure (Edward's blood) and turning human.

* LooksLikeOrlok: The subsiders are still vampires, but, like Orloks, they more resemble humanoid bats than actual humans with pronounced fangs.

* MustMakeAmends: Frankie, redeeming himself for his sins with a YouShallNotPass.

* NoSeatBelts: The accident that [[spoiler:turned Elvis human]] sent him crashing through the windshield to fly through the sunlit air and plummet into a lake. The car he was driving was an early 1950s model year, so maybe he never installed seat belts . . . when he was extensively modding it for daylight driving. He was also suffering from blood deprivation, so it may have had seat belts that he simply chose not to use in his currently poor judgement. And driving at high speeds in daylight is pretty reckless in itself, so it's all part of the danger thrill.

** If deprived of human blood for a time, vampires will revert to a twisted state with no hair, pointed ears, and their arms turning into bat-like wings, their minds also reverting to an apparently feral level.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Frankie spends the majority of the film as a lapdog of the government, intent on hunting down humans and reining in his own brother. Towards the end of the film he repents, becomes human, and dies in his very next scene. Also, the cure for vampirism plays with this trope, as in order to become human again both Elvis and Edward have to absorb (in controlled doses) enough sunlight to kill a vampire.

* SupernaturalGoldEyes: This is played completely straight as one symptom of vampirism.

** Blood-deprived vampires turn into Subsiders, and the non-deprived consider these FeralVampires a threat. Of course, the reason the Subsiders are starving is that they tend to be poor, homeless, outcast or otherwise "undesirable" members of society. The government decides there's only one solution. At the hands of the military, the Subsiders are hunted down, chained up and mass-executed by a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_marches_(Holocaust) death march]] into the sunlight.

** The forced march of the subsiders was... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_marches_(Holocaust) quite disturbing]].

* VegetarianVampire: Played with in regards to Edward. He typically drinks animal blood but still suffers the beginning stages of deprivation and is shown to be developing a subsider's pointy ears. Never clarified is whether this is because the type of blood he was drinking is less effective or simply because of a general shortage, as both human and animal blood are indicated to be getting more difficult to procure. [[spoiler: When the human resistance notices his condition, Audrey immediately donates some of her blood to him in a cup and makes him drink it, though he does so against his principles and only very reluctantly.]]

* MonstrousCannibalism: Feeding on other vampires or themselves accelerates the starving masses' transformation into subsiders.