Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Byzantium’

Written by Scott Edwards

​There are so many people out there that want to tell their story but are afraid of what will happen when they do. When you open yourself up and tell the world who and what you are, there are always fears that people will lose respect for you, but if you come clean, you might feel better about yourself. Of course your pride may take a bruising in the process so it may not be the best thing to give away all of your secrets to the world at once, maybe reveal one at a time until people start to understand what you are trying to tell them.
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Finishing her story, the story that can never be told, Eleanor stands on her balcony and throws the pages out once again. Knowing that the world is not ready to know who or what she and her mother actually are, she is not allowed to tell anyone. Seeing an old man sitting on the steps of her building, Eleanor speaks to the gentleman and finds out that all stories should be told, no matter how tragic. Telling the old man about her mother Clara, Eleanor sucks the old man dry of every drop of his blood while Clara finds that someone from her past has caught up to her once again.

With a dead body in the apartment, Eleanor and Clara are forced to move once again, but this time they have moved back to a town that they have already lived in once before. While Clara returns to her lifeless profession of hooking, Eleanor is trying to find something better to do with her time. Finding a piano, Eleanor hits the keys and brings music to everyone in the bar. Taking notice of the young girl, Frank is dumbfounded of how talented she really is. Wanting to know more about the girl, he offers to meet her after he gets off of work and while Eleanor would rather be alone, she is starting to see that there could be some good in having a friend. 

Following her own path, Clara has found a man that is down on his luck that also offers a warm place for the two ladies to lay their heads. With an old hotel that is no longer in service, Clara decides to open up one of her old businesses, a brothel. With decent income coming in for the two, Eleanor still continues to tell her story to whomever will listen and while in a relaxing group session, she starts to open up about who she is. But after being given an assignment to tell who she really is, Eleanor writes her history for young Frank and it blows him away when he reads it. Turning Eleanor’s paper into the instructor, the young two-hundred-year-old teenager suddenly becomes a target for more than just the police.

This is quite a different type of vampire film than I am usually accustomed to. With the mother and daughter team of Eleanor and Clara only feeding when they need to, there is still plenty of blood in this movie to catch your eye. I enjoyed the story the story that Eleanor is trying to tell, since she knows all of it since birth and cannot forget one bit of it. The protection that Clara tries to give her daughter is very noticeable in the movie, even when the two fight about what is right and wrong. Seeing how the two were transformed into what they are today, I really liked watching the waterfalls turn red with blood when the transformation took place, it will stick with me for a lot longer than I expected. Stay Scared.

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