Byzantium (2013)

BYZANTIUM  (2013)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Neil Jordan
    Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Sam Riley,
    Jonny Lee Miller, Kate Ashfield, Daniel Mays
A mother-and-daughter vampire team travels from town to town, feeding when the opportunity presents itself and getting by on the money mom makes as a hooker and exotic dancer - a line of work not many 200-year-old women who aren't vampires would be able to sustain. A convoluted storyline and some thinly sketched characters undercut the suspense, and it's never as scary as you'd like a vampire movie to be, but Jordan gets some nice atmospherics from a lighting scheme that looks dim even on a sunny day, and he sure doesn't skimp on the blood - there are rivers of it. Ronan's understated performance as the younger vampire almost makes you believe she could be a creature who's been tapping veins since the early 19th century. And if she should show up at your door when you're old and infirm and ready to move on to the other side, you could do yourself a favor. You could let her in.