Review of Byzantium (2013) by Paul H — 03 Jan 2014

I adored this film - you can really tell it's one of Jordans. If you go in expecting an action film, then you'll be sorely disappointed - it's really quite slow paced, but I was never bored (and I'm someone with a reasonably short attention span), and even the characters that you think of as a little hammy towards the start of the film really develop and come into their own as the film progresses towards it's climax.

The blending of realistic scenarios and emotional & physical distress with elements of the more traditional vampire mythos starts out a little shakey, but over the course of the film strengthens significantly until you end up with a very well told collection of stories, knitted together in a world you can really lose yourself in by characters that I really did end up believing in.

It's not fast paced, but if you're looking for a decent horror/drama film with lots of character studies and gritty real world scenarios then you could do far, far worse than Byzantium. If this film flops, it may just be that the public aren't currently ready for a horror film that's not full of jump scares and exploding zombies with all the subtlety of a clown with his cock out.