Neil Jordan’s 'Byzantium', starring IFTA winner Saoirse Ronan as a 200 year old vampire trapped in a teenager’s body, is released in Irish cinemas this Friday 31st May.
Partly filmed in the Beara Peninsula in West Cork and at Ardmore Studios in Bray, the film is a beautifully shot and unashamedly gory slice of genre filmmaking marking a return to vampire mythology for Jordan 20 years after ‘Interview with the Vampire’.
Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan star as mother and daughter vampires respectively - with the former finding fresh victims through working as a prostitute and the latter opting to feast on elderly dying patients who have given up on life.
Not for the faint of heart, the film features decapitations and plenty of grisly deaths, as the female vampire duo hunt their prey and are themselves hunted by an ancient brotherhood of male vampires determined to eliminate them.
Indeed, some of the most powerful and poignant scenes in the film are the flashbacks sprinkled throughout, which reveal how the main characters were originally turned into vampires long ago.
The film also stars Irish actress Maria Doyle Kennedy (‘Eliza Lynch: Queen of Paraguay’), Jonny Lee Miller (‘Elementary’), Tom Hollander (‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3’) and Caleb Landry Jones (‘X-Men First Class’).
Based on a play written by Moira Buffini, the film was a co-production between American company Demarest Films, Number9 Films in the UK and Ireland’s Parallel Films.
Producers on the film included Sam Englebardt, William D. Johnson, Elizabeth Karlsen, Joanna Laurie, Mark C. Manuel, Alan Moloney, Redmond Morris, Susan Mullen, Patrick O'Donoghue, Ted O'Neal, Danny Perkins, Stephen Woolley.
‘Byzantium’ received the support of the Irish Film Board and UK Film Council.
For anyone who needs further convincing, the trailer is available to view below:
