Synopsis
Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are a rampant mother-and-daughter duo of 200-year-old vampires, wreaking mayhem in the run-down quarters of an English seaside town.

Eleanor yearns to be a writer, constantly recording gothic elements of her turbulent life. Despite her self-effacing demeanour, Jordan chooses to dress her in a coat with a broad crimson hood, a possible back-reference to the hooded dwarf in Nicholas Roeg's 1973 classic thriller set in Venice Don't Look Now.

When Eleanor falls for the anaemic-looking Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), it seems that her secret may be revealed. Meanwhile, Mother Clara has moved in with no-hoper Noel (Daniel Mays), who has inherited a derelict seafront hotel - the Byzantium of the film's title - which she proceeds to convert into a bordello. Another neat cinematic 'hat-tipping' gesture by Jordan is the hotel's antique lift car: a reference to the Bradbury Building, Los Angeles, chosen by Ridley Scott as the home of the cyber designer and mechanical toy freak J.F.Sebastian, in the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner.

When she is not supping on the blood of her post-coital clients, Clara is battling kung-fu style with two fearsome heavies from The Brotherhood, culminating in a gripping blood-drenched finale played out in a deserted fairground arcade.