Byzantium-Yes, There Are Good Vampire Movies Still

I'll say this for director Neil Jordan.  You take a look at his resume, he doesn't look like a horror director.  But he is one on atmosphere, also very plain in his other excellent vampire film, the great adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, starring Tom Cruise as Lestat.   He does return to the vampire genre with Byzantium, and his touch with atmospherics as well as narrating tales of flesh eating immortals wafting down through history has not lost it's touch.  If you are looking for overly sentimental vampires acting like creepy teenagers, this is not your movie.  If you are looking for an over the top actioner with vampiric superheroes, this is also not your film.  This one is about blood sucking immortals trying to make it in the world of mortals.  Sure, they may be immortal and individually far more than a match for any mortal, but piss off the masses and set them with a mind to murder...well, out come the pitchforks and torches.

 

 

 

That is the world of Clara and Eleanor Webb, a mother and daughter vampire pair who have been drifting through the world for a few centuries.  Clara had Eleanor when she was a human prostitute in the Napoleonic era.   Later, she received her dark gift through guile and seeing her moment (the vampires in this world limit the gift to males) and later, when she had her chance, brought ther daughter over as well.  Eventually, they drift into seaside London and find a hotel that has seen better days, occupied by one man.  They wend his way into his graces and Clara decides to open up the old prostitution business to make use of all these rooms.  Eleanor goes to school, writes gothic, biographical stories about her life as a vampire and meets a boy she likes.  All this while, the police are tracking them, and they fear this fraternal vampire order is as well.

 

But even for immortals, there comes a time where the children need to fly from the nest and fend for themselves.

 

Moody without being dreary.  Thoughtful without being pretentious.  Taking it's premise seriously without being full of itself, Byzantium is a good vampire flick that offers some new looks as well as old tropes, beautifully shot and you actually care about these characters and their fates.

 

Good one.