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Role: Alison Bromley

In the year 2019, a plague has transformed almost every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save humankind.

In 2007, it was announced that Isabel had landed her first film role as Alison Bromley in “Daybreakers”. The film was written and directed by Michael & Peter Spierig, and the cast included Hollywood-veterans Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe! The filming began on July 16, 2007, and wrapped September the same year. It originally premiered at the 34th Annual Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2009, before being released internationally in January and February, 2010.

Film Plot

In 2009, a plague caused by an infected bat transforms most of the world’s population into immortal vampires. The human population plummets, leaving vampires with a severe shortage of blood; vampires deprived of blood degenerate into psychotic, bat-like “subsiders”. Most humans are captured and harvested in laboratory farms while scientists research a synthetic blood substitute. As sunlight is deadly to vampires, underground passages and UV-filtered cars are built for safe travel, while the few free humans travel by day, hiding in open spaces.

In 2019, Edward Dalton is the head hematologist for Bromley Marks, a pharmaceutical company which is the largest supplier of human blood in the US. Edward and colleague Christopher Caruso are developing a blood substitute.

Driving home from a failed experiment, Dalton accidentally runs another vehicle off the road. Discovering the occupants are humans, Dalton hides them from police. Before they part ways, their leader, Audrey, learns Edward’s name and occupation from his ID badge.

At home, Edward is surprised by his estranged brother Frankie. Frankie’s gift of a bottle of pure human blood reignites a long-standing argument – Edward refuses to drink human blood and uses animal blood instead, while Frankie enjoys his vampire status. A subsider, a gardener from Edward’s neighborhood, invades the house, forcing the brothers to kill it.

The next morning, Audrey visits Edward’s home, giving him instructions for a meeting. There, Edward is introduced to Lionel “Elvis” Cormac, a human who was once a vampire. Before he can explain his reversion, a military team arrives with Frankie, who followed Edward and intends to capture Cormac and Audrey. Audrey knocks Frankie unconscious and the three escape. Cormac reveals that he was cured of vampirism when a car crash ejected him from his sun-proof vehicle. Elvis burst into flames in the sunlight but landed in a river, having been exposed to the sun for a precise length of time to turn him human again. Edward agrees to help Cormac find a way to recreate the cure and prevent human genocide.

At a vineyard that night, Edward meets more humans and Senator Wes Turner, a vampire secretly helping the colony develop a cure. An approaching convoy of humans is captured, and vampire soldiers track the location of the vineyard, forcing Turner and the humans to flee. Audrey, Cormac, and Edward stay behind, and together they recreate the method by which Cormac reverted to human form, curing Edward of vampirism. They later find Turner and all the humans dead.

Alison, one of the captured humans, is revealed to be the daughter of Charles Bromley (CEO of Bromley Marks) who refused to become a vampire. Charles has Frankie forcibly turn her into a vampire, but she refuses to drink human blood. Devolving into a subsider, Alison and others are executed by being burnt to death by sunlight. Upset at witnessing Alison’s death, Frankie seeks out his brother. The military imposes martial law to control the subsider population.

Edward, Cormac, and Audrey break into Christopher’s home and ask him to help spread the cure. Having finally discovered a viable blood substitute, and feeling overshadowed by Edward, Christopher is uninterested in a cure and summons soldiers, who capture Audrey while Cormac and Edward escape. They are found by Frankie, who agrees to help. He attacks Cormac, but drinking his blood turns Frankie human, revealing that the sunlight cure is unnecessary.

Trying to save Audrey, Edward turns himself in to Charles, who gloats about Bromley Marks’ new monopoly on the blood substitute as using blood substitute to cure blood loss in human is much less profitable than selling it as grocery to the vampire population. Charles reveals his plan to continue hunting humans and sell their blood for exorbitant prices, as “people are always willing to pay extra for the real thing.” Edward taunts Charles into biting him, turning Charles human.

Edward leaves Charles at the mercy of soldiers on the brink of becoming subsiders. Frankie arrives and draws the soldiers’ attention to allow Edward and Audrey to escape. In the ensuing feeding frenzy, only six soldiers are left standing, now cured. To conceal the cure, Christopher shoots the soldiers and is about to shoot Edward and Audrey when Cormac kills him with a crossbow.

The three survivors drive off into the sunrise. In a voiceover, Edward announces the cure will change the general population back to restore humanity.

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Trivia

An almost two hour long documentary film titled “The Making of ‘Daybreakers'” was released in 2010. Isabel is featured more in the documentary than the film itself, and it shows clips from her training, behind the scenes of her final “vampire” look, interviews and more.
When the movie was released in UK cinemas it was rated 15 but when released to DVD it was changed to an 18.
The makers of the movie hosted a contest in Worth1000.com (famous photo manipulation-contest site) to come up with images of how the world would look if nearly everyone were a vampire.
This movie was released in the USA on January 8th 2010, birthday of Elvis Presley. The character played by Willem Dafoe is named Elvis because of his love for the Presley song ‘Burning Love’.
The corporation named Bromley Marks is named after Patricia Bromley Marks, the wife of Dick Marks, Australian advertising legend and mentor to Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig.
The film takes place in 2019.
Shot in 2007, according to an article in Entertainment Weekly (Issue #1085)
In the part where Edward goes to meet “Elvis” under the tree. Audrey is being walked up at gun point. When Edward turns around, between Edward and Elvis you can see the drivers side fender full of holes from gun shots and again during the scuttle between Elvis and the soldier. But seconds later you’ll see the army Hummer driving up and shooting up a flawless fender.
In the first scene, a calendar dated April 2019 is shown. The 1st of April is shown to be on a Tuesday, while it should actually be on Monday.
While a human caravan is heading back to their ‘base’ they get ambushed by Vampires from both sides, the humans in turn take cover on either side of their cars but they only get shot at from the side their facing, despite being ‘surrounded’.
The film grossed over US$50 million and received mixed critical reception.
In November 2004, Lionsgate acquired the script to Daybreakers, written by Peter and Michael Spierig. The brothers, who directed Undead (2003), were attached to direct Daybreakers.
Hawke was initially hesitant to join the production as he was “not a big fan” of genre films. He ultimately accepted the role as Edward after deciding the story felt “different” from that of a typical B movie
Hawke described the film as an allegory of man’s pacing with natural resources, “We’re eating our own resources so people are trying to come up with blood substitutes, trying to get us off of foreign humans.” The actor also said that despite the serious allegory, the film was “low art” and “completely unpretentious and silly”.
Daybreakers premiered on 11 September 2009 at the 34th Annual Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released on 6 January 2010 in the UK and Ireland, 8 January 2010 in North America, and 4 February 2010 in Australia.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 68% based on reviews from 151 critics, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website’s critical consensus states: “Though it arrives during an unfortunate glut of vampire movies, Daybreakers offers enough dark sci-fi thrills — and enough of a unique twist on the genre — to satisfy filmgoers.”
In its opening weekend in the United States, Daybreakers opened at No. 4 behind Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel with $15,146,692 in 2,523 theaters, averaging $6,003 per theater.

Quotes

Alison: Can anyone hear me? They’ve found us, they’re everywhere.

Alison: [to her father while drinking her own blood] Is this what you wanted?

Promotion

The world premiere of Daybreakers was held in New York on January 7, 2010. Due to Isabel’s mount Kilimanjaro climb with Summit on the Summit during the month of January that year, she was not a part of the international promotion for the film. However, she did attend the Australian premiere on February 1st, 2010.

Taking a well deserved break from the hectic “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” promotion tour of 2009, Isabel wasn’t among the cast to promote the film in various talk shows or magazines. She was however photographed on the set of the film in 2007, in a photoshoot which was used to reveal her casting.