Swanvale Halt Film Club: Byzantium (2012)

If you're going to do a film about vampires and make it even semi-tolerably un-clichéd and fresh, perhaps you simply must divest the motif of all its baggage, create an entirely different genealogy for the vampire which has nothing to do with Carpathian mountains and counts in capes, and set the story in a down-at-heel corner of the UK. We found Neil Jordan's movie very entertaining, rather reticent and quiet in much of its tone interspersed with the occasional but well-handled moment of lurid incident, and enough good ideas to keep it interesting. What remains unexplained doesn't really need explaining - although we were left reflecting that 'Byzantium' is a pretty weird name to give a guest house, in Hastings or anywhere else.