Byzantium (2012)

"Residents of a coastal town learn, with deathly consequences, the secret shared by the two mysterious women who have sought shelter at a local resort."

It looks as if the tiny pool of new horror movies has dried-up again for this year, so I've decided to start rewatching the older ones as and when they appear on Netflix. I have no idea why. I'm not even "into" horror movies anymore, but I keep on backsliding when I'm bored.

At least the choice of things to watch is slightly better than when I used to write my "Crap I've Watched on Netflix" posts, but I'm still not saying that the very small selection of horror movies available on Netflix is particularly great. This month's biggest new addition to Netflix is, as you must realise, Neil Jordan's "Byzantium".

As some people will be watching and reviewing "Byzantium" for the very first time, I thought that I should finally write something about it here too. It's not that I haven't reviewed it before, but my critique was only two or three sentences on another site which no longer exists. Back then, I honestly thought that I'd spent more time on my review than the movie actually deserved, and I'm sure that I'm not going to say anything more informative about "Byzantium" now either.

Although I've recently seen a certain "critic" (who I have zero respect for) write that it's impossible to "hate" a movie, I'm pretty sure that I actually do hate "Byzantium". It's not just a case of "disliking it intensely" either. I loathe nearly every pretentious frame of "Byzantium" in its overly long running time apart from the sexier bits with Gemma Arterton.

Easily the best part of "Byzantium".

Yes, there really is only one good reason to ever rent or buy this movie, and it's simply to ogle Gemma Arterton channelling Kat Slater from "Eastenders" as she plays a vampire. Gemma's sexy performance as Clara, plus her deliciously violent and bloody cheesewire decapitation of a very arrogant character early on, are the only truly memorable parts of "Byzantium" for me.

Of course, "Byzantium" might be remembered by some people for being two hours of tedious yet undeniably beautiful camerawork. Nobody sane can deny that Neil Jordon's desire to make every cinematic shot equally valid as a still picture is admirable, except when that technique is clearly overused and stifles the flow of the narrative. The same thing happened recently with "It Follows" (2014), and there have been several more "slow burn" products which have made me wonder if horror directors are intentionally trying to bore their audiences to death nowadays instead of scaring them.

"Byzantium" should, however, be even more remembered for Caleb Landry Jones mumbling his lines so unintelligibly that you have to switch the subtitles on to understand what he says. Any clues as to what accent he's meant to be doing hinge around the facts that he's a Texan in real life and his Frank character has certain health problems and "issues", but it's still no excuse for such a bizarre performance. If it's any consolation, I thought that he sounded Irish.

Once again, a very tiny minority who nobody takes seriously anymore might rave about the blatant misogyny or misandry (depending on which side of the SJW fence they sit) in "Byzantium", but I won't. Make no mistake about it though, "Byzantium" is equally full of both. It's certainly not subtext here either but right in your face!

Having said that, "Byzantium" not only summarises the most common attitudes in its historically accurate depictions of the genders in certain time periods, but give or take the fantasy elements, it contains a fairly accurate depiction of how some people act in the present day. Outside of this imaginary world of the internet where he or she who shouts loudest and most often is the one who gets noticed, there's a gritty reality which isn't pleasant, and you'd only be deluding yourself to think otherwise.

Eleanor is an even more depressed teenager than Bella.

As usual, I have no time for that pseudo-philosphical and political bullshit. I only watch movies for the storytelling. To me, "Byzantium" is just another plodding vampire story where humans are considered second-class citizens and a source of food for the immortals. It's this general misanthropy of "Byzantium" which is the point that all those "reviewers with agendas" are missing.

Similarly to "Interview with the Vampire" (1994) which was also directed by Neil Jordan, and just like in Anne Rice's other novels, to be a vampire is a reward. To be mortal is only to suffer and be used until your purpose is served. In the midst of this, at least Clara thanks the lorry driver who gives her and daughter a lift, but underneath her facade, she's still a cunning, manipulative user and a deadly predator who only does things for her own benefit and personal safety at the end of the day.

Rather than providing a counterpoint, Clara's daughter Eleanor (played by the unpronounceably named Saoirse Ronan) is a 200-year-old teenager with nothing inside her but 200 years years of teenage angst, feeling sorry for herself, a holier-than-thou attitude, and general mopiness. She's still a killer though, and no matter how she might legitimise how she selects her victims in her own mind, she doesn't have any discernable conscience about it. In fact, Eleanor truly believes that she's doing her elderly victims a favour. Roll out the pro-euthanasia bandwagon and preach that message in a movie, why don't you? Not to me, you won't, because I'm not listening.

Eleanor is not the most irritating character in "Byzantium" by any means, since that role is well and truly taken by Frank, but I wouldn't want to watch any more of her than this story allows. Eleanor's romantic subplot with Frank is not "a better love story than Twilight" no matter how it brings that meme to mind. The thought of them doing the nasty makes me cringe.

Passive-aggressively bashing Twilight will not make this movie scary.

The smaller but important supporting roles (including Jonny Lee Miller as Ruthven, Sam Riley as Darvell, and Maria Doyle Kennedy as Morag) are extremely well played and provide the gravitas for "Byzantium" which prevents it from being watched on titter alert for at least the first viewing. Noel the hotel owner is as tragically comedic as any Mike Leigh character (mainly because Daniel Mays is recognisable for playing those roles before), and there are some comical scenes—one of them possibly being intentional—even so. As much as I usually hate it when people do it, "Byzantium" can't stand up to repeat viewings without making it a necessity to ridicule every scene mercilessly.

The bottom line is that "Byzantium" is an extremely slow vampire movie, and as much as it attempts to be, it is not some "high art". Credit is due when it tries to ignore the traditional vampire movie tropes and rules (except for one), and it has a decent enough but predictable story if you like vampires. You really can't and shouldn't expect anything else. It's a hundred times more entertaining than "Only Lovers Left Alive" (2013) anyway.

Should I start doing interviews again?

I'm not sure if I ever posted a link to DrunkethWizerd's interview with me over at "Horror Movies and Beer" last year, but if I did and you missed it, here's the URL again:

http://eerieeriksreviews.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-interview-with-dr-blood-death-of.html

As you will see, it was just a bit of fun from December, 2012, when none of us had anything better to write about, and pretty much cemented my position as one of the grumpiest horror bloggers in the world. Meh. I have discernment. I am what I am.

Over half a year on, none of my opinions have changed although I have been getting more introspective lately. As my Twitter followers already know, I'm constantly torn about packing-up the whole "blogging thing" and moving on. I've had more backlashes than Spartacus from things I've written including threats, jealousy, stalkers, and more insults than most human beings ever encounter in a lifetime. Behind the scenes of the comments approval list is a daily shitstorm of hate (and spam) which makes me despair of humankind. Thus, when I say "moving on", I actually mean deleting everything and never looking back, but for some reason I feel that would be rather wasteful. So what if people don't like me? I don't like most people, so it's just tit-for-tat.

I've written some good stuff over the years, and a lot of atrocious stuff with commas and tenses scattered so randomly that you'd never believe I spent the best part of my life at University, but that's just what happens when you treat Blogger as a MySpace replacement. I'm not the best writer in the world, but I never tried to be. I was taught one way of doing things in school only to find that a lot of the rules have changed from one English language speaking country to another, and I now spend more time second-guessing myself grammatically than saying things how I want to. If people realised how much time could be wasted on chopping and changing a blog post, they'd never do this as a hobby, and certainly wouldn't do it as a business venture. I swear I don't know why I still do this other than being a glutton for punishment.

The thing is, even though it would be hilarious for me to be interviewed by you to give you something else to post, I'm not famous in any way nor do I have any desire to be. Like everyone, I wouldn't mind having more money, but fame isn't something that I'm chasing. I'm not yearning to write for one of the big name horror sites or a horror magazine, to write a book, or to do anything with my writing at all except just to do it for the sake of doing something other than collecting my own toenail clippings in a jar. I've already done three out of the achievements that I've listed anyway (for no pay whatsoever!), and I'm already on my fourth jar.

Interviews are all well and good as long as the interviewee gives you some promotion for your own site on their blog and vice versa. More traffic is always nice no matter what causes it. In many ways, interviews with other bloggers are little more than a banner exchange-style "shout out". Unless you have a current product or service to promote, it's mostly redundant, but I've noticed that a lot more people are doing it again now. It's trendy, so I kind of want in on the action.

Maybe it's because a certain blogger who shall remain nameless (but I can barely read because of his constantly centred text and childish appreciation of little toys) announced on one his "How to be a Blogger" posts that "movie reviews are boring". The "Horror Lamers" clique then took that great authoritarian on all things "Blogger" to heart and started writing anything but movie reviews. As you may have guessed, that lost them my subscriptions immediately. I may not read many reviews, but I have absolutely no interest in cupcakes made to look like zombies or how to knit your own fangs on a supposedly "horror" blog. As for crappy cartoons about "The Addams Family" or Winona Ryder's wardrobe in "Beetlejuice", well, I think there may be something a teeny bit wrong with you upstairs if that floats your boat or it's all you've ever had to offer other people to read about.

I actually wrote a sarcastic "How to be a Successful Horror Blogger" guide myself which, considering the nature of last week's inter-species drama, turned out to be quite prophetic. I never imagined that anyone would have the balls (metaphorically speaking) to really do such a thing, but she did. I scare myself sometimes with my qualities as a visionary!

Getting back to the subject, on the flip-side of the interview thing, does anyone want me to interview them? I'll gladly do it. Truly successful blogging is all about the content, and lately, there's been precious little of it written by me or anyone else.

If you're interested, I'm offering you a chance for five minutes of "fame" on my blog. Bear in mind that you must be reasonably interesting to my other readers, not be trying to promote some lame hobby horror movie that you made yourself, nor tailor your answers into a socio-political rant which will get us both dragged off to Federal ass-pounding jail. Apart from those rules (and my hypocritically enforced PG-13 language rating to attract more pageviews), anything goes.

I've interviewed some "celebrities" in the past which a few people liked, but it's been years since I last did one. It's just like riding a bicycle (so I'm told), so don't be put off. Let's face it, writing questions and answers is easy. Transcribing audio is much worse, but I can't be bothered to do that. If I wanted to go that route I'd work out how to record Skype for yet another podcast which nobody ever listens to. There are only about a million of those to compete with.

Since I subscribe to a more global version of Alfred Hitchcock's controversial view that "all actors are cattle", I've never cared unduly about film credits or who does what behind the scenes. I'm all about the story being told and how well it's being told rather than anyone being famous for being in that story. Other than knowing the names of the most obvious talents and mechanics, it may disappoint you that I don't have an up-to-date encyclopedic knowledge of all members of the horror genre. I wouldn't know who to contact or who really falls into the "horror celebrity" category now that so many lines have been blurred by age, careers ending, and social networking. We all go to the toilet, so nobody is that special just because they have more money or fame than someone else. I'll talk to anyone no matter how big or small they think they are.

I'm therefore leaving this offer open to ANYONE (apart from my boggle-eyed, goggle-eyed stalker) who wishes to be either an interviewer or an interviewee. Of course, because no payment is being asked for or offered, this may not come to anything at all. It all depends on you. The ball, as they say, is in in your court. Leave a comment below or feel free to talk to me about it on Twitter.