Vampires suicide by sunrise just another cliche (spoilers)

In the last 4 vampire movies in a row that I've watched, a vampire commited suicide by watching the sunrise. Spoilers ahead...

These movies were not chosen for any other reason other than I felt like watching them. It all started with Let the Right One In, followed by Thirst, Daybreakers, and then 30 Days of Night.

Let the Right One In

I heard lots of good things about LtROI from the start, but also didn't pay much attention to it because I tend to avoid things that are overhyped, sometimes to my loss. LtROI was a brilliant piece of work, but I'm not writing this post to recite the same praises and fanfare, this is about the scene where a vampire kills themself by sunlight.

In this movie, it is a middle aged woman name Virginia who turns into a vampire and decides to take the easy way out by a sunlight suicide. (That's pretty catchy, "sunlight suicide")

The scene: Virginia is in a hospital bed and asks an aide to open the blinds for her. Upon opening, the sunlight hits her and she bursts into flames as tall as the ceiling in a violent and painful eruption. The scene doesn't last long, but I'm guessing the entire room and possibly half of the building burnt down to the ground. What I love about this scene is the suddenness of the eruption. From the overall tone of the movie, you are not expecting such pyrotechnics. I'm using the word eruption because that's what it is, so much more than any other burning vampire I've seen in any film.

My rating: 5/5 burning vampires

Thirst

After watching LtRIO, I was in the mood for another foreign film and the film I came across just happened to be another vampire movie. Having not heard anything about this movie, I gave it a try, and it is now one of my favorite foreign movies.

In Thirst, our protagonist is a priest with such selflessness that he gives his body over to science and turns into a vampire. Trust me, it's better than that sentance I just summed it up in.

The Scene: The ending. Sang-hyun (the priest) drives a car with his girlfriend Tae-ju sleeping in the passenger seat, and her mother in the backseat, to a cliff with nowhere to hide from the sunrise in sight. It's Sang-hyun that wants to commit suicide here, and he realizes that Tae-ju is pretty damn psychotic and needs to die too. When Tae-ju wakes up, she sees the situation and tries to hide in the trunk. Sang-hyun rips off the top of the trunk and throws it into the ocean. She then hides under the car, and he proceeds to push it off her. When she finally accepts her fate, they sit side by side on the hood of the car facing the sunrise and burn to death. Their burn is a slow burn, like wood burning in a campfire. The scene is shot exceptionnally well, and it's almost romantic, except for Tae-ju's mother being in the backseat and staring at them from a comatose state, that's a little akward.

My rating: 4/5 burning vampires

Daybreakers

After watching 2 foreign vampire movies, my friends recommended Daybreakers. I vaguely remember seeing previews for this movie and barely remembered that it looked pretty cool. I liked it, but nowhere near as much as LtROI and Thirst.

The Scene: The opening scene. A 12 year old girl writes a suicide note and you catch hints in her note about her being very old and tired, and just wanting to end it. She proceeds to walk out the front door and sit in the lawn waiting for the sunrise. When the sun comes up, she starts to burn, and you can see the cg coming out. The whole scene is mediocre.

My rating: 2/5 burning vampires

In Daybreakers defense, it was a good movie. It was also a "science fiction horror film" with more of it's focus being on the farming of human blood and the developement of a cure. The movie itself is good, just not the suicide scene.

30 Days of Night

After watching an American vampire movie, I wanted to give another one a shot and came up with this from another friend's recommendation.

Overall, I like this movie very much. It's a very good horror movie with a sense of desolation. The vampires are depicted as very feral and brutal, which was a nice change.

The Scene: The ending. Josh Hartnett is a vampire and he goes with his wife, who's not a vampire, to watch the sunrise on a snowy cliff. Cuddled up in his wife's arms, the sun rises and he slowly turns to ash, and somehow his wife is barely affected. What attempts to be an emotional scene was just another cliche suicide by another sad vampire.

My rating: 1/5 burning vampires

Maybe it's just that seeing the same scene in these 4 movies really just dulled my senses toward it. Blade really needs to make a comeback. Hopefully we'll see that whenever Wesley Snipes makes his comeback from his financial problems.