Film Review | Horror

Daydreamers (2023) — stylish Vietnamese vampire horror examines colonial legacy

Saigon, present day. Vampires, once predators of the night, are all but extinct. The few who remain cling to a desperate truce to not kill.

It’s been a few years since I reviewed a good Vietnamese horror film. The last one was Derek Nguyen’s The Housemaid (2016), produced by Timothy Linh Bui, who’s back directing Daydreamers / Người mặt trời, his third feature and the first full-blooded vampire film to come out of Vietnam. Some might point out that Vampire Master / Cậu chủ ma cà rồng (2019) already claimed that distinction, but the vampire element there is minimal, which is a criticism that cannot be levelled at Daydreamers.

In the film’s animated preamble, a voiceover tells us that vampires first came to Vietnam from Europe four centuries ago — at the tail-end of the 17th century. Persecuted in Europe, they fled to Indochina where they wreaked bloody havoc until the indigenous people learnt how to fight them with stakes and silver, rising up in fierce resistance to…