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Byzantium | 2013 | R | - 7.8.5
When a 200 year old vampire mother and child take refuge on a nearly empty island; they soon change all of its residents. With Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Warren Brown and Caleb Landry. Directed by Neil Jordan. [1:48]
SEX/NUDITY 7 - We see a shirtless man thrusting on top of a woman with the woman facedown on a bed and looking at her cell phone (she appears very bored).
► It is implied that a man rapes a teen girl: we hear the girl crying, curled up in a bed and then see the man buttoning his shirt and previous sex is implied. A man threatens to rape a teen girl; we later see the teen girl crying, crumbled on the ground and a small amount of blood is visible on her white nightgown (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A man enters a room where it is apparent that a woman was previously being forced to have sex with another man; the woman appears to be shaken as the man buttons his shirt (we see the woman's bare breasts when she sits up). A teen girl overhears the sexual moaning of a woman and a man (the woman is her mother). We see a man wearing boxer-style underwear leave a room with two women wearing robes on either side of him; it is implied that they are about to have sex.
► A woman kisses a man passionately; the woman straddles him and bites his neck (implied to be killing the man; please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A man wearing thong-style underwear is seen on his hands and knees on a bed while a woman wearing a short robe and visible bustier is seen spanking him repeatedly with a whip.
► A woman pulls on a short skirt and bustier and begins to work as a prostitute; a man approaches the woman and she tells the man a series of prices for various sexual activities, the man gives her money and the woman kneels in front of him; the man begins crying, the woman stands up and hugs him and the man pulls up his pants (no nudity is visible). A woman kisses a man. A woman cuddles next to a man and kisses him on the cheek. A teen boy leans in to kiss a teen girl, their faces are very close and he then kisses the girl's forehead; their mouths come very close and the teen girl turns and runs away.
► A teen boy and teen girl hold hands; we see them on a bed together and the teen boy is shirtless (his bare chest is visible); they kiss passionately until they are interrupted when the girl accidentally scratches the boy. A teen girl nuzzles against a teen boy, kissing him.
► A man warns a teen girl not to trust another man, the man takes the girl to a brothel where he leaves her, saying that he is giving her the "gift" of a job (being a prostitute) and a woman takes the girl by the hand and leads her to a bedroom. Several men are shown at a strip club where a woman dances suggestively and performs a lap dance in front of a man; she is wearing thong-underwear and a bustier and we see other women in the background dancing against poles. A woman proposes to a man that they should turn a hotel into a brothel. A woman angrily chides two other women that are teasing her teenage daughter, crudely telling the women to return to the streets to perform oral sex for money.
► A teen girl's voiceover explains that her mother makes her money on her "knees."
► We see a painting of a woman in the background of a classroom and the woman's bare breasts are visible. We see a woman in the shower and blood spray pours off her as she showers (we see her bare back).
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VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - A man grabs a teen girl and shouts a series of threats at her, and it is implied that the man rapes the girl as revenge for the teen girl's mother giving him a sexually transmitted disease that causes boils all over his face and skin; the girl's mother attacks the man, stabbing him repeatedly in the throat with her thumbnail and we hear the sound of cutting flesh as the man falls to the ground.
► A woman takes a garrote and pulls it around a man's neck, she twists and the man's head pops off causing blood to spray all over the woman and the walls and the man's head lands on the ground with a thud and rolls away; the woman chases a teen girl out of the room and sets the room on fire using lighter fluid. A man grabs a woman forcefully, trying to hold her against his crotch until the woman attacks the man, biting his face and we see the woman wipe blood from her lip.
► A woman leaps onto a car where her teen daughter is handcuffed inside with another woman and two men; the driver turns to the female passenger and snaps her neck (there's no blood); the two men in the car leap out and chase the woman on top of the car and after a high-speed foot chase one of the men pins the woman to the ground while the second man pulls out a sword and it appears that he is about to kill the woman, but silently chops off the head of the other man (we hear the head hit the ground with a thud and see blood spurt and pour from the open neck wound).
► A woman straddles a man and bites his neck; blood comes from the man's neck and we see the woman continue to bite his neck as his arms and legs twitch (it is implied that the man dies from the woman draining his blood). A woman leaps on top of a man; she appears to bite the man, and blood sprays from his neck and onto the woman who appears to be drinking the blood (we see blood on the woman's mouth). A man straddles a woman and bites her neck (we see blood on the man's mouth and coming from the woman's neck). A teen girl uses her thumbnail to pierce a man's wrist and we see a small amount of blood; the girl lifts the man's wrist to her mouth and drinks his blood. A teen girl approaches an elderly woman in a hospital bed and the woman appears close to death; we see a blurry silhouette, as the girl appears to pierce the woman's neck and drink her blood.
► We see two different scenes were a man and then a woman enter a small rock building where they are rushed by bats and then appear to approach their own dead bodies, covered in blood; the man sees himself with blood pouring from his neck and covering his chest and the woman sees her body on the ground, covered in blood; both the man and the woman are seen under a waterfall where the water turns red with blood and the woman rubs the bloody water over herself; the man leaves the small building and approaches two men who are holding another woman, the man attacks her neck, biting her and blood pours from the wound. We see a teen girl approach what appears to be a mirror image of herself and she screams as bats fly past her out of a small stone structure; we then see the body of the teen girl covered in blood on the ground and it is implied that the girl has become a vampire and her human body has died.
► A woman shoves a man into an open elevator shaft, and he lands with a thud on top of an elevator carrying the woman's teen daughter; blood from the man seeps into the elevator car (it is an old-style elevator, with open cage doors) and the man appears to be dead. A woman shoots a man in the leg (no blood is visible) and he falls to the ground with a thud. A woman hits a man on the head with a bottle and tries to race away as he grabs her; she quickly pulls away and they run through a series of hallways and streets and onto the top of a building until the woman is cornered by the man; she leaps through a skylight, crashing into a bouncy-castle in a gym below and the man leaps after her (we see a cut on the man's temple); we later see the man and the woman in her apartment and the man has blood on his face and collar.
► A teen boy swerves his bike and almost wrecks; he stands up and holds his hand (blood pours from a wrist wound and we see blood covering the boy's arm) as a teen girl tries to help him; we see her take the teen boy, who appears to be getting weaker as they walk and his mother loads him into a car; a bloody rag falls from the boy's hand as they drive away and the girl picks it up and drinks the blood from the rag; the boy is shown recovering in the hospital with an IV of blood hooked up to him as the boy's mother explains to the teen girl visiting that he was on blood thinners after battling leukemia. A teen boy's wrist begins to bleed after a teen girl scratches him and the girl takes the boy's wrist to her mouth and drinks the blood (the boy is unharmed).
► Two men investigate a crime scene where we see a very burnt looking body and a burnt lump that appears to have been a disembodied head. Two men discover a man's body; he is ashen and appears to have had all the blood drained from his body.
► A woman shouts angrily in her teenage daughter's face and the girl shoves her away. A man grabs a woman's arm angrily.
► A woman is seen coughing violently through a portion of the movie (the coughs produce blood and we see blood on a handkerchief that the woman is carrying). A man, woman and the woman's teenage daughter watch a movie where we see a man stab a woman in the chest (obviously fake blood pours from the woman's wounds).
► A woman's voiceover explains to her teen daughter that she had been told to kill the girl as an infant; we see the woman carrying an infant to an orphanage and leaving her on the front stoop. A teen boy asks a teen girl whom she wants to kill. A teen boy invites a teen girl (a vampire) to kill him and she declines. A teen girl's voiceover reads what she is writing, that a woman (her mother) had meant to smother the baby (the now-teen girl) as soon as she was born; we later hear the girl reading the same thing to a man who finds a scrap of paper with the girl's writing on it. A woman reads an online article about a fire and a dead body found in an apartment. A woman tells a teen girl (her daughter) that they will be killed since the girl told a boy the secret that they are vampires. A teen girl tells a classroom of teenagers that she had been raised to believe her mother was dead. A teen boy tells a teen girl that he had experience with ghosts, because as a child his imaginary friend was probably the ghost of a child that had previously died in the house from "cot death." A man tells a woman that he had seen a man develop an injury that would not heal and that he then saw the man's dead body but that the man now appears to be alive and well. An older man tells a teen girl that as a child priests would tell him stories of people who were "neither living or dead." A man tells another man that he had seen the man dead. A woman sings a song to her teenage daughter; the lyrics are that a baby was "so thin that it was a skeleton wrapped up in skin."
LANGUAGE 5 - About 9 F-words, 3 sexual references, 5 scatological terms (1 mild), 1 anatomical term, 10 mild obscenities, name-calling (monster, prissy, stupid, very strange little chick, as clueless about sex as a pair of shoes, crust, pathetic), 2 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - A young woman appears to be strung out on drugs and we see her shaking and holding a cigarette, throughout the movie a woman appears to be heavily under the influence of drugs, and a woman almost passes out as she walks through a hallway and another woman catches her just as she is about to fall. A man drinks a beer. We see a young man smoking a cigarette.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Vampires, revenge, prostitution, family bonds, mother-daughter relations.
MESSAGE - The bond of a mother and daughter is very strong.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
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We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.