Ass Pull: While it makes sense how sunlight and water could act as some sort of defibrillator, no explanation is ever given for why blood from resurrected vampires will cure vampires. It more than likely has something to do with the "treated" blood entering a vampire's bloodstream via ingestion.
Crosses the Line Twice: The blood substitute test. After the volunteer has a bad reaction but recovers, he merely says, "Ow." He then promptly explodes into bloody chunks, covering everyone with gore. It's horrifying and hilarious at the same time.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Two of the film's better-liked characters probably have less than ten minutes of screen time each.
Fanon Discontinuity: The last thirty or forty minutes of the movie, in the eyes of some fans. This is due to the reduced focusing on world building, the Dropped a Bridge on Him fate of Audrey's fellow resistance members, Audrey becoming a Faux Action Girl, Allisonbecoming a subsider and dying, and a second method of curing vampires turning up in a fashion that some fans consider to be an Ass Pull.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In the film itself; when Audrey notices that Edward needs human blood, they could have saved Edward all his subsequent research if Elvis had volunteered his blood at that point rather than Audrey.
Harsher in Hindsight: The film is set in the then-near future of 2019 after a virus originating in bats (in 2009) transformed much of the world's population into Vampires, causing massive social and cultural change. In real life, 2019 would see the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, a pandemic of a virus that many scientists believe originated in bats. The pandemic also caused a lot of social and cultural change, most notably forcing people to isolate at home.
The start of Bromley's death is horrific, what with the mass feeding and muffled screams - then a soldier rips off his head and just holds it in front of the camera as the eyes roll upwards. For some reason.
When the vampires who rushed and ate Frankie turn human, they are in turn rushed and devoured by further vampires in a slo-mo orgy of blood and violence. And then the last surviving soldiers also turn human. If Christopher hadn't charged in just then and killed them all, who knows how long the chain reaction would have gone on?
So Okay, It's Average: The primary consensus amongst critics and audiences, who praise its sleek visuals, cast, and intriguing premise (especially amidst a wave of unoriginal vampire movies following Twilight) while criticizing its more underdeveloped elements and underwhelming climax.
At one point someone is clearly showing drinking coffee, with milk... and blood.
Not to mention how horribly wrong a small argument over how much blood was in the coffee went...
The coffee shop's blood bags are marked by type, suggesting their customers were actually offered a choice of flavors when supplies were still plentiful.
Chris's friendship with Edward could have been played up more to to make his betrayal feel stronger.
Senator Turner and the refugees Audrey was harboring ultimately have no real impact on the plot suffering from Dropped a Bridge on Him after an interesting build-up as a mole and people who'd been hiding for so many years. They could have provided a Big Damn Heroes moment or been present at the end to add to the sense of hope and optimism when their absence and deaths/captures didn't do anything for the plot, and simply gave both Audrey and the audience a "Shaggy Dog" Story feeling about that whole subplot.
Allison being turned into a subsider and killed feels this way after her actress's strong performances, given that the only purpose of this seemed to be to cement Bromley's ruthlessness (albeit in a way contradictory to his earlier actions) and to give Frankie something horrifying to witness, and he seemed to shrug it off enough to try and turn Elvis again later. Having her survive to get cured by the blood of an ex-vampire at the end could have been an emotionally satisfying conclusion to her subplot. It doesn't help that some fans found her more compelling than some of the leads.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The hard way to cure vampirism is surviving sunlight by being fully submerged in water. In other words, a baptism. And the easy way is to drink the blood of an ex-vampire... or in other words, someone who died and rose again. Just as Christians do in Communion.
