Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan are living as vampires in the international trailer for Neil Jordan’s Byzantium

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It’s been 19-years since Neil Jordan directed INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, and by the looks of BYZANTIUM it seems that he hasn’t lost his touch.

The first trailer for the film tells the story of two lady vampires who have been traveling the world together for over 200 years. The youngest of the two played by Saoirse Ronan wants to tell the story of her extraordinary life with the one she calls her Mother (Gemma Arterton). In telling the story that she has written and kept, it threatens the secret that they have held so deep. It’s quite a relief to see a vampire flick like this one which seems to care about evolving the folklore rather than destroying it. Plus getting to hear and see Arterton be as naughty as she can be ain’t so bad.

Check out the trailer below.

Synopsis: Seventeen years after Neil Jordan first dipped into the vampire genre with Interview With the Vampire, his Byzantium proves that he has lost none of his taste for the bloody and Gothic. Drenched in a rich, suitably gloomy atmosphere, Jordan brings a crystalline vision to bear on this story of two female vampires who wreak havoc on an unsuspecting English seaside community, as the film fluctuates between gory mayhem and melancholic reflection.

Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) is a precocious girl with a bent for storytelling. A natural introvert, her idea of a good time is to put pen to paper and reflect on her inner life. Her “sister” Clara (Gemma Arterton) is the complete opposite: extroverted and sexual, she struts around in stilettos and skin-tight garb, attracting hungry male gazes wherever she goes. Both carry secrets from deep in their shared past — all 200 years of it — which bubbles to the surface as Jordan wends his way through the twists and turns of the plot. It turns out that Clara was involved in a passionate love affair during the Napoleonic Wars, while at the same time Eleanor was abandoned as a child. In the present, both seek to preserve their secret from their unsuspecting new companions. Eleanor falls for a sweet young waiter (Caleb Landry Jones), while Clara settles on a homey, unsuspecting man (Daniel Mays) who has just come into an inheritance: the Byzantium Hotel, which has seen better days. The fun begins as Eleanor and Clara shack up in the hotel, feeding off their victims while attempting to stay one step ahead of their pursuers, who are hot on the duo’s trail after Clara rather violently disposes of a particularly seedy pickup.